Mathematica vs Sigma Computing

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Our analysts compared Mathematica vs Sigma Computing based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Business Intelligence Tools, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Sigma Computing Software Tool

Product Basics

Wolfram Mathematica is a technical computing platform that can perform a wide range of computations and algorithms for mathematics and beyond. Primarily designed for research and academia, it enables users to create powerful scripts through a flexible, multi-purpose programming language. It allows users to analyze and visualize data in sophisticated ways and employ methods such as machine learning, data mining and deep learning to model and solve complicated problems.

It is available in the cloud through any web browser or installable on-premises on all desktop environments. Users can purchase licenses as individuals or under group or enterprise pricing for cloud, desktop or both versions.
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Sigma Computing is an analytics solution that directly connects to cloud warehouses and delivers real-time insights that drive data-informed decision making. With a spreadsheet-like interface, it provides a familiar experience for business users and analysts to utilize formulas to analyze and visualize their data. Through a self-service model, users can explore their data and ask and answer questions for themselves. It streamlines complex data analysis processes and promotes teamwork throughout a business with a balance of collaboration and control.

It is entirely cloud-based and enables data access without the risk of extracting, moving and storing data. Suitable for companies of all sizes, this SaaS runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Pros
  • User-friendly interface
  • Affordable pricing
  • Scalable for business growth
  • Cloud-based accessibility
  • Responsive customer support
Cons
  • Limited data analysis features
  • Less powerful than competitors
  • Occasional performance issues
  • Restricted data storage capacity
  • Lower customization options
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$1,800 Annually
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Tailored to your specific needs
$300 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Assistance

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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
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Product Insights

  • Seamless Integration: The system includes more than 5,000 built-in functions that cover all areas of technical computing and all integrate to work perfectly together so that code runs interactively and instantly within a native environment for its language. 
  • Automate to the Max: Through superfunctions, meta-algorithms and more, users can automate a variety of tasks so that they can work as efficiently as possible.
  • Code Designed to be Learned: Wolfram Language, the proprietary programming language that powers Mathematica, is user-intuitive with English-like functions that make it easy to read, write, learn and program in a way that makes sense and is often shorter than code written in other programming languages.
  • Always Moving Forward: Wolfram continually updates Mathematica with new features and functions that extend the vision and scope of the platform, while maintaining consistent compatibility for over 30 years.
  • Vast Resources: Wolfram provides a host of resources to help users get started with their projects, with more than 150,000 examples and more than 10,000 open-code demonstrations to which they can refer. In addition, access to instant real-world data broadens the spectrum of up-to-date information at users’ disposal.
  • Publication-Ready: Mathematica presents data and insights with beautiful visualizations and publication-quality documents, helping researchers and presenters make their results look their best.
  • Scalability: The platform streamlines workflows for programs and teams of any size, allowing users to scale up or down to address problems or projects as needed. Everything is industrial-strength, capable of handling large-scale problems through parallelism, GPU computing and more.
  • Access Everywhere: Through an interactive online cloud environment, all users need is a web browser or mobile app to compute with Mathematica or interact with Wolfram Notebooks, making it an ideal solution for instant, remote access.
  • Free Trial: Anyone can try Mathematica for free for 15 days. The trial includes both a download of the application to install on a desktop computer and access to the online platform.
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  • Fast Integration: Without coding experience, users can securely and directly connect to data warehouses and get started without wasting valuable time on importing their data. Analysts can lay the foundation for the entire organization to succeed with data in hours, rather than days.
  • Ease of Use: Users work with a familiar spreadsheet-like interface and formulas to generate insights, no code required. The system automatically translates all the front-end actions input by users into SQL on the back-end.
  • Real-Time Access: Users can leverage the power of the cloud to query data directly where it lives, allowing for live analysis of massive datasets and insights in real time. 
  • Keep Data Safe: Sigma never moves, stores, copies or caches users’ data, instead running queries against the data warehouses and passing the results back to the system, ensuring that data remains secure with robust data governance and platform security that exceeds industry standards. It complies with data privacy guidelines SOC 2 Type II, CSA, GDPR and CCPA.
  • Improve Collaboration: The system eliminates BI bottlenecks and inaccurate analyses by establishing a single, reusable and accessible source of truth for all users to query. Sigma transforms the data modeling process into a collaborative one; users can edit tables and create visualizations together, enabling better communication and decision making by forging a bridge between data teams and business users.
  • Self-Service BI: Users have the freedom to explore ad hoc analysis without waiting for IT teams to update models.
  • SQL Authoring: Users with SQL technical knowledge can create and edit reusable analyses to activate with one-click parsing.
  • Free Trial or Demo: Interested customers can try out the full platform for free for 14 days, or request a demo of the solution to try with their own data warehouse.
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  • Wolfram Language: Wolfram’s proprietary computational language allows developers to code with a language that allows both computers and humans to communicate with each other through almost 6,000 built-in functions. Built on a philosophy of knowledge-based programming, it aims to help users automate as much as possible and maximize coherence of design while being universally deployable in any environment.
  • Connect to Everything: Through symbolic expressions, interactions and external connections, the Wolfram Language conveniently connects to a broad spectrum of platforms, languages, databases, protocols, APIs, applications, file formats and devices.
  • Notebook Interface: With structured documents that store text, runnable code, dynamic graphics and more, Wolfram Notebooks provide an environment for technical workflows that supports interactive computation. They empower user literacy in a high-level programming interface through interactive coding, natural language queries and expansive documentation that make the platform accessible to users without coding experience.
  • AlgorithmBase: Not just through industrial-strength algorithms but also meta-algorithms and super functions, which automatically select the optimal algorithms to use in a given situation, users can define their goals or concepts and let the system take over to automatically achieve them, enabling discoveries and experimentation with algorithms. With its robust library of scalable and accurate algorithms, the AlgorithmBase serves as a trustworthy resource for programmers to use to ensure high-quality computations.
  • Data Visualization: Through algorithms, Mathematica can create visually compelling representations of data in the form of 2D and 3D plots, graphs, histograms, word clouds, geographic visualizations and more.
  • Machine Learning: Through highly automated functions that work on many types of data, the platform can carry out a wide range of tasks, including classifying data in categories, predicting values, learning from examples and performing automated time series analysis. 
  • Mathematica Online: Powered by the Wolfram Cloud, users can harness the computational system from directly within their web browsers, with no installation required. Everything automatically saves and stays in the cloud, and users can control who can access their documents through instant sharing, URL links and permissions controls. Seamlessly integrated with the desktop version, it allows users to upload or download notebooks and access the cloud from a computer.
  • Wolfram Knowledgebase: Mathematica and the Wolfram Language has access to the world’s largest and broadest trusted source of computable knowledge, curated by experts and derived from primary sources, including not just the data but also the methods that compute results.
  • Mobile App: The Wolfram Cloud free app for iOS and Android mobile devices allows users to edit, run and deploy programs and access Wolfram notebooks and instant apps through its home-screen-like experience.
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  • Data Warehouse Connectivity:  Sigma connects directly with many popular data warehouses, including Snowflake, Google Big Query, Amazon Redshift and PostgreSQL, or users may pull their data from other partners like Matillion, Fivetran, Alooma and Stitch to create their central source of truth by indexing all the tables in those sources. 
  • Dataset Preparation: Sigma creates reusable datasets from individual or joined tables using one or more data sources. These Datasets can be edited either with a no-code worksheet-based interface, or with Sigma’s SQL Runner. 
  • Links: Users can add context to their Datasets by setting up the relationships between datasets in a guided, contextualized way. Non-technical users can preview and create pre-model joins without needing knowledge of the join creation process. The system also pulls pre-existing relationships in databases upon connection with a data warehouse.
  • Data Visualization: Users can create assorted kinds of charts and graphs from their worksheets, including bar charts, line graphs, pie graphs, tables and more. These visualizations can be formatted in various ways. 
  • Object Badges: Users can flag datasets and worksheets as Endorsed, Warning or Deprecated, guiding others to the most accurate and relevant data with a glance.
  • Shareable Workspaces: The platform has both individual and team workspaces, allowing for collaboration on data analysis. These workspaces can be shared externally, providing access to insights to partners or third parties who may benefit from them. The system also has an organization-wide workspace that everyone can search and explore through filters, descriptions and file names.
  • Role-Based Permissions: The system has tiered permission levels from highest to lowest for admins, authors and viewers, to allow different permissions and access settings on a role-by-role basis. Permissions may be granted on an individual or team level, allowing for organizations to add and remove users from access levels based on function, department or other categorization.
  • Data Security: In addition to role-based access control, the platform provides single-sign-on (SSO) and row-level security to ensure safe data analysis. The application has a secure infrastructure, with firewalls, credential and vulnerability checking, peer review, static code analysis, threat and anomaly detection and encryption in transit.
  • JSON Support: The visual interface enables business users to create views with JSON that unlock the value of semi-structured data. These strings of JSON can be stored, referenced and reused for analyses and visualizations across the ecosystem. 
  • Third Party Integrations: The system integrates with Slack and Google Sheets for enhanced collaboration.
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Product Ranking

#47

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#184

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User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 305 reviews
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92%
of users recommend this product

Mathematica has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 92% when considering 305 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

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4.59 (152)
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4.6 (153)
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Awards

Mathematica stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Symbolic Computation: Mathematica excels at handling and manipulating symbolic expressions, making it ideal for tasks that involve algebra, calculus, and other forms of mathematical analysis. This can be particularly useful for financial modeling, risk analysis, and other business intelligence applications that require complex calculations.
Visualization Capabilities: Mathematica offers a wide range of visualization tools that can be used to create high-quality charts, graphs, and other visual representations of data. These visualizations can be interactive, allowing users to explore data from different perspectives and gain deeper insights. This is essential for effectively communicating complex data to stakeholders in a business setting.
Automation and Scripting: Mathematica allows users to automate tasks and create scripts, which can save time and improve efficiency. This can be particularly useful for repetitive tasks, such as data cleaning and analysis. Automating these tasks can free up time for business intelligence professionals to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Machine Learning and AI: Mathematica includes a wide range of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can be used for tasks such as predictive modeling, classification, and anomaly detection. These capabilities are becoming increasingly important for business intelligence, as they can help organizations to identify trends, make better decisions, and gain a competitive advantage.
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User-friendly interface: Sigma's intuitive design and drag-and-drop functionality make it easy for users with limited technical expertise to get started and create insightful reports.
Affordable pricing: Sigma offers a competitive pricing model with a free tier for individual users and small teams, making it accessible to businesses of all sizes.
Scalable for business growth: Sigma's cloud-based architecture scales seamlessly to accommodate growing data volumes and user bases, ensuring your BI solution can grow with your business.
Cloud-based accessibility: Access your data and insights from anywhere, anytime with Sigma's cloud-based platform, eliminating the need for on-premise infrastructure.
Responsive customer support: Sigma provides responsive and helpful customer support via email, phone, and live chat, ensuring you get the assistance you need when you need it.
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Price: Mathematica comes with a hefty price tag, especially for commercial use, which can be a significant barrier for individuals or small businesses.
Learning Curve: The software has a steep learning curve due to its vast functionality and unique syntax, requiring a significant time investment to master.
Closed Ecosystem: Mathematica operates within a closed ecosystem, making it challenging to integrate with other data analysis tools or programming languages commonly used in business intelligence.
Limited Collaboration: Collaboration features are not as robust as those found in other business intelligence platforms, hindering teamwork and knowledge sharing.
Visualization Capabilities: While Mathematica offers visualization tools, they may not be as intuitive or user-friendly as dedicated data visualization software, potentially limiting the ability to create compelling and insightful dashboards.
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Limited data analysis features: Compared to more robust BI solutions, Sigma offers a less extensive range of advanced data analysis capabilities.
Occasional performance issues: Some users have reported encountering occasional performance issues, such as slow loading times and data refreshes.
Restricted data storage capacity: Sigma's free and lower-tier plans offer limited data storage, requiring upgrades for larger datasets.
Lower customization options: While Sigma offers some customization options, its capabilities are not as extensive as other BI platforms.
Less powerful than competitors: Although Sigma excels in user-friendliness, it may lack the power and flexibility required for complex data analysis needs.
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Let's crunch some numbers and see what users have to say about Mathematica! Mathematica has garnered a reputation as a powerful computational tool, particularly in academic and research settings. Users frequently praise its symbolic computation capabilities, allowing them to manipulate and solve complex mathematical expressions and equations with ease. This strength sets Mathematica apart from competitors like MATLAB, which primarily focuses on numerical computation. Mathematica's notebook interface also receives positive feedback for its ability to combine code, visualizations, and text in a single document, facilitating reproducible research and clear communication of findings. However, Mathematica's steep learning curve and high price point are often cited as drawbacks. Users transitioning from other programming languages may find Mathematica's syntax and functional programming paradigm challenging to grasp initially. Additionally, the cost of a Mathematica license can be prohibitive for individual users or small businesses. Overall, Mathematica is best suited for researchers, scientists, and engineers who require a comprehensive tool for symbolic and numerical computation, data analysis, and visualization. Its extensive functionality and ability to handle complex mathematical problems make it an invaluable asset in these fields. However, individuals or organizations with limited budgets or those seeking a more user-friendly option may want to explore alternative software solutions. Keep in mind that software is constantly evolving, so it's always a good idea to check for the latest updates and user reviews to make an informed decision.

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While Sigma Computing receives praise for its user-friendly interface and affordability, some users feel it lacks compared to similar BI tools like Tableau and Power BI. One user noted, "Sigma is great for beginners, but I quickly outgrew its capabilities. It just doesn't offer the depth of analysis I need." Another echoed this sentiment, stating, "The lack of advanced features was a dealbreaker for me. While Sigma is easy to use, it's not powerful enough for complex data analysis." However, others find Sigma's strengths outweigh its weaknesses. One user commented, "For the price, Sigma is a fantastic tool. It's simple to use and allows me to create insightful reports quickly and easily. I don't need all the bells and whistles offered by other platforms." Another user praised its scalability, saying, "Sigma has grown with my business. As my data volume increased, Sigma seamlessly scaled to accommodate my needs." One differentiating factor is Sigma's focus on real-time data and collaboration. One user highlighted this, saying, "Sigma's ability to work with real-time data is a game-changer. It allows me to make decisions based on the latest information, not outdated data." Another user noted the benefits of collaboration, stating, "Sigma's collaborative features make it easy to work with my team on data analysis. We can share insights and brainstorm ideas in real-time." Ultimately, the suitability of Sigma Computing depends on individual needs and priorities. If you're a small business or individual user who needs a basic, affordable BI tool, Sigma is a great option. However, if you require advanced data analysis capabilities or extensive customization options, you may be better served by a more powerful BI platform.

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