Matt Bowcock // mbowcock.com

I used Matlab quite a bit in engineering school and got used to having it available not only for math but for its programming ability. After graduating there were times I wished I had access to Matlab but didn’t couldn’t afford the commercial license so I looked for open source/free software with similar capabilities and was really surprised to find some great software.

GNU Octave - Similar functionality and programmability of Matlab. Programs written in Octave can be run in Matlab if they are written with that ability in mind.

FreeMat - Another app similar to Matlab - I personally used this one more than Octave - not for any particular reason I just liked it. The programming language syntax is similar to Matlab.