Can anything free compete with Wolfram Alpha?

Question

I am considering purchasing a premium account for Wolfram Alpha, but before I do, I thought I should explore other options.

Is there any free software with capabilities that rival that of Wolfram Alpha's premium version?

I use a lot of different software for mathematics, such as Desmos, but nothing else that even rivals the power of Wolfram Alpha's free version. Is there anything amazing out there that I am not aware of?

I purchased it for a month and discontinued because the claim of 3x computation time was misleading. In 100% of the searches I made, there were no differences in what the website would successfully crunch, between premium-pro and free. — Srini, Dec 31 '16 at 04:26
Wolfram also offers free (limited use) of their Mathematica engine through the Wolfram Programming Lab. — Ian Miller, Dec 31 '16 at 04:40
@Batman Wolfram Alpha's ability to solve complex algebraic systems never ceases to amaze me. Also, its vast range of functions make it very versatile. — pseudoeuclidean, Dec 31 '16 at 04:40
@pseudoeuclidean So you are saying you want the full range of functions that Alpha can do? — Ian Miller, Dec 31 '16 at 10:57

score 7 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 10:38

7

You may try SAGE for an experiment. It has inbuilt platforms for R, Singular, Maxima(which is very similar to Mathematica), Octave(which is similar to MATLAB), Python, GAP, GP and HTML. It has interactive tutorials included through which you can incorporate any extra functions not included.

edited Jun 12 '20 at 10:38

Community

1

answered Dec 31 '16 at 04:51

vidyarthi

7,028

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 01 '17 at 03:37

Paid Option

Wolfram Alpha is built upon Wolfram's Mathematica engine (and some extras). If you like it full capabilities and intend to spend some cash I would recommend buying Mathematica. The student or teacher edition prices are very good value.

Free Option

Before you spend money I recommend trying out Wolfram's Programming Lab. It is a free web based slim version of Mathematica. As far as I can tell it has the full functionality of Mathematica but is time limited (reasonably generously). (The time limit appears to be IP based so if you don't have a fixed IP you would be able to use it even more.)

Can anything free compete with Wolfram Alpha?

2 Answers2