RStudio vs Mathematica

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Our analysts compared RStudio vs Mathematica 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.

Product Basics

RStudio is an integrated development environment suite for the R programming language, synthesizing coding tools into one software tool for easier advanced data processing. Using in-memory processing, it is capable of parsing big data through integrations and connections.

It is available in both open-source and commercial formats, with extra features available in the paid edition includes more sophisticated collaboration and security efforts. The free version is capable of end-to-end analytics, from API connectivity and data ingestion to visualization creation and distribution. It can be deployed standalone or on a web browser through connection to RStudio Server.
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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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$4,975 Annually
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$1,800 Annually
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Product Insights

  • Open-Source or Commercial: Create visualizations and reports from data analysis scripts with the open-source version. Access more advanced features, including deeper security and support with the paid version.
  • Streamlined R Programming: Execute code directly from the source editor by integrating the tools being used into one interface. Supports Git and Subversion for more advanced code writing needs.  
  • Advanced Data Analysis: Investigate trends on a big data scale via integrations for distributed processing, data modeling and predictive analysis. Develop deep analytical insights through R, the premier statistics coding language. 
  • Proprietary R Packages: Get sophisticated ready-to-install R packages comparable with machine learning frameworks to ingest, store, analyze and consume data.  
  • Data Visualization: Easily digest analyzed data through out-of-the-box and integrated visualizations and data consumption deployment vessels using Shiny and ggvis. Create interactive dashboards and charts with drill-down capabilities. 
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  • 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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  • Source Editor: Develop programs in a single console window by synthesizing and integrating all tools in use. Highlight syntax, define functions and complete code in the console.  
  • Web Applications: Publish applications, dashboards and documents to the web with the internally-developed Shiny Server R package. 
  • Flexdashboard: Develop interactive dashboards with JavaScript visualizations, with support for HTML widgets, with this R package. 
  • Launcher: Launch R and Python processes remotely or submit R scripts to compute clusters like SLURM or Kubernetes. 
  • REST API Creation: Develop web API connections with the plumber R package — with as little as a single line of code. 
  • Spark Integration: Integrate seamlessly with Apache Spark to achieve big data analytics through distributed processing and leverage its machine learning capabilities to run more advanced queries.  
  • RStudio Connect: Publish statistical data analyses in the form of visually impactful visualizations, synthesizing all the aforementioned publishing features into one interface.  
  • Data Modeling and Prediction: Powers predictive and prescriptive analytics via connectivity to TensorFlow. Improves the product’s own data modeling capabilities via Tidymodels R package. 
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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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Product Ranking

#20

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Business Intelligence Tools

#47

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Business Intelligence Tools

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User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 700 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 305 reviews
90%
of users recommend this product

RStudio has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 700 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

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.

5.0 (12)
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4.5 (485)
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4.59 (152)
4.6 (89)
4.6 (153)
4.4 (43)
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4.4 (71)
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Awards

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

User Favorite Award

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

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Data analysis: Around 96% of users who reviewed data analysis said that the platform had strong machine learning and data analysis capabilities.
Functionality: Approximately 86% of users who mentioned functionality said that the tool had a wide range of powerful features for efficient data visualization and analysis.
Ease of Use: The interface was user-friendly and easily navigable, according to 74% of users who reviewed this feature.
Cost: About 93% of users who mentioned pricing said that the open source version of the platform was a definite plus.
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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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Performance: The tool used up a lot of memory and slowed down when processing large amounts of data, around 88% of users who mentioned its performance said.
Steep Learning Curve: Approximately 73% of users said that it was challenging to work with the platform without previous knowledge of R and that the syntax was difficult to learn.
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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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RStudio is a powerful web- and cloud-based BI platform with excellent statistical analysis and data science capabilities. Integrating with cloud computing technologies, the platform has good machine learning capabilities to power data analysis by providing a wide range of features for data recovery, presentation and interpretation. It provides rich built-in visualization libraries with pre-set charts and functions that drastically reduce the need to code. Many users who reviewed its UI said that the interface was user-friendly and easy to navigate, though some users said that it looked dated and could do with an upgrade. Quite a few users who reviewed the platform for data analysis said that it was easy to run statistical and regression tests with minimal coding, and coupled with an open-source server, this platform served their data needs well. On the flip side, many users who reviewed the tool for performance said that it consumes a lot of memory and lags behind its competitors in speed. Quite a lot of users mentioned that the platform could be buggy at times and was prone to crashes, possibly because some libraries were not optimized for performance with large datasets. Many users found it confusing to access the open-source version, especially since separate versions of the platform work differently with some library packages. Some users complained that the code run, once started, could not be stopped and the stop button on the interface didn’t work. A majority of users who reviewed the learning curve as a feature said that the help section was difficult to understand and previous knowledge of R was required to leverage the tool to its fullest. In summary, RStudio is a versatile and extensible BI tool powered by machine learning and is capable of insightful statistical data analysis and forecasting capabilities.

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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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