Comparison¶

WolframScript & Mathematica¶

WolframScript is the official command line interface for the Wolfram Language provided by Wolfram Research, the company behind the Wolfram Language.

Mathematica is the official frontend with a notebook interface. It is implemented as a cross-platform desktop application and is available for macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Implementation Language: C++
First Release: 1988
License: Proprietary

Woxi¶

Woxi is our alternative to WolframScript and Woxi Studio is our alternative to Mathematica.

Implementation Language: Rust
First Release: 2024
License: AGPL-3.0-or-later

They try to be as compatible as possible, but there are a few features, they intentionally deviate from the official Wolfram Language implementations to provide a better user experience.

WolframScript vs Woxi¶

Woxi supports Unicode characters \ For example to calculate the circumference of a circle with radius 4:
```
woxi eval 'N[2π * 4]'
```

Mathematica vs Woxi Studio¶

Woxi Studio does not support out of order evaluation of cells \ When running a cell, it automatically also runs all cells before it. This is to avoid confusion about the state of the kernel and ensures consistent results when working with notebooks.
Woxi Studio does not support % \ This is too brittle as it refers to the last calculation that was evaluated, which could be any notebook cell and therefore leads to confusion about the state of the kernel. If you want to reuse results, assign them to a variable.
Mostly not implemented yet
- Wolfram Knowledgebase \ This includes functions like:
  - WolframAlpha[]
  - Built-in Entity[] objects
  - Natural language input with ctrl =
  - Most functions listed on http://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/KnowledgeRepresentationAndAccess.html
- Machine Learning and Neural Networks
- Optimization
- FEM
- Chemistry
- Audio Computation
- Video Computation
- Geography
- Astronomy
- Control Systems
- Signal Processing
- Tools for AIs

Mathics¶

Mathics is the only major open source implementation of the Wolfram Language apart from Woxi.

Implementation Language: Python
First Release: 2011
License: GPL-3.0