# Scilab Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is Scilab the right Statistical Analysis solution for you? Explore 20 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/125815/Scilab/reviews --- Scilab 4.3 (20) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/125815/Scilab/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of Scilab Ease of use 4.3 Customer Service 4.1 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews Tejas H StudentE-Learning, 501 - 1,000 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “User can able to perform complex calculations of maths very easily and quickly using programming.“ March 22, 2022 Shreyas H ASME IGTI Student LiasionMechanical or Industrial Engineering, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “I can use this free of cost since its opensource and it delivers all the features in matlab for free!“ June 16, 2020 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-20 of 20 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use AHMAD A. Information Technology Engineering Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "A Free and Open-Source Alternative to MATLAB" November 4, 2023 4.0 Pros Scilab proves to be a tool, due to its extensive collection of functions that cater to projects of any scale. Moreover the fact that Scilab is freely available as an open source software makes it accessible, to a range of users. Cons Scilab may not be the user friendly, at first. Might require a bit of prior instruction to navigate. However this is a concern that can easily be overcome with some practice. Switched from [MATLAB](https://www.capterra.com/p/125813/MATLAB/) The student edition of MATLAB typically has a price around 100 Euros. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Student E-Learning Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Perfect software to solve complex problems " March 22, 2022 4.0 It is very useful for engineering students to solve critical mathematical problems. Also it is very helpful to plot a graphs of various equations. So overall it is perfect open source tool. Pros 1\. It is open source free hence any one can use Scilab. 2. User can able to perform complex calculations of maths very easily and quickly using programming. 3. User can able to plot a graph or simulate a complex equation to analyse it's nature. 4. It is very useful in ‎designing various types control systems and analyze it's behaviour under different conditions. 5. It is used to solve mathematical, scientific, engineering, geometrical problems very efficiently. 6. It is very light weight so it can also run on low end pc's. Cons No any cons experienced while using but sometimes it takes time to fully load software. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Research Engineer Research Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Not a Matlab alternative" August 30, 2022 3.0 It was my first lab software ever, even before MATLAB. For educational purpose, Scilab served really well in helping me to get the first sense of scientific coding. Some might say that Scilab is a diluted version of MATLAB but in my opinion, each software has its own specificity. Thank you a lot for being a part of my youth. Pros Free access and open source program for everyone. A fantastic open source tool for beginners academic researches. You have a large variety of tool boxes to use and to develop, beside learning basic scientific and programming notion such as arrays, matrixes, etc. Cons Lack of help from the community and customer services. Poor graphical design. Review Source AA Arshad A. MS. Student Higher Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Scilab" October 26, 2021 4.0 Scilab is a good tool to carryout evaluation and simple code development. Pros Scilab offers a lot of fucntions to evaluate and simulate data in the programmed manner. It data visualization is good. Cons It do not have as many features as Matlab or wolfarm mathematica have. Also its a bit hard to use. Review Source LS Linos S. Academic Higher Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lightweight, powerful, but not compatible with MATLAB" January 10, 2019 5.0 Pros Scilab is a great tool for statistics, communications, satellite orbits, networking, algorithm complexity, and virtually all fields of academics and engineering. Both Scilab itself and its plugins (called modules) are cross-platform, with ready-made packages for Windows, macOS, the most popular Linux distros, and BSD. It is free and open-source, distributed under GPLv2 and previously CeCILL. The main application is well-written, using as little resources as possible, but stays as powerful as any alternative. The community is not large, but it is a serious one, users and programmers constantly working in making Scilab the optimal application of its kind. Cons Let's not lie; scientist and engineers use MATLAB a lot. Scilab, unfortunately, is not remotely compatible with MATLAB. As long as Scilab is not the most popular of its kind, compatibility will always be an issue. That being said, skill transfer is not a problem. Apart from that, some new modules might be heavier on your computer than they should, but a serious community makes sure they are improved with a rapid pace. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer ASME IGTI Student Liasion Mechanical or Industrial Engineering Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Amazing product!" June 16, 2020 5.0 trying to run my simulations for my current research project Pros I can use this free of cost since its opensource and it delivers all the features in matlab for free! it runs fast and the parallel processing is amazing Cons the fact that its sometimes slow and it consumes a lot of memory. It hangs at times which is bad as well but for short codes its ok Review Source Enrique M. Analista Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Use this software in my studies of Computer Engineering with free software" March 8, 2018 5.0 It has many benefits but the most outstanding is its potential in terms of what we can develop with it and the fact that it is free Pros This software allows to make scientific and mathematical calculations of physics and engineering, it serves for the simulation of industrial control processes and it is also free Cons It can be said that there are few disadvantages we can mention the language in which it was made English and French must only have a previous instruction to handle it is not very instuitive Review Source Ebert B. Full Professor Higher Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Scilab is a powerful tools for maths calculating. It is very easy to use." July 2, 2018 4.0 This software allow one to do very complicated maths calculate. Pros I do most like to Scilab its environment for editing maths problems. Another excellent feature is that Scilab is an open and free source software, what allow one to customise to a huge amount of problems. Cons I do like least is that Scilab is not easy to learn, because it works by commands, and some people do not like to use commands. However, Scilab has a set of icons for modelling systems, which help one to model systems. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Design Engineer Aviation & Aerospace Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Scilab performance" December 16, 2019 3.0 Scilab is good to solve mathematical problems. If you get used to Scilab, you can perform various engineering work. Pros Good performance for open source program as mathematical solver. Scialab has various toolbox options to use specific area. Cons Precision of solver can be improved. Autosave functionality is not dependable. Signal operations like attaching two signals is hard to implement. It has its own style with xcos, so it is not easy to get used to it. Review Source Saurav C. Research Assistant Environmental Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Good for statistical and data analysis " April 4, 2020 5.0 I used Scilab to perform a bunch of statistical analysis for the geographical data I was working with Pros Scilab is very similar to Matlab but it does not have a lot of in built functions that Matlab has. It gives me the flexibility to create functions and if you prefer to build your own functions you will like Scilab over Matlab Cons I did Like the figures that I was able to create with Matlab compared to the figures created in Scotland. Review Source Mounaim B. estudiante de ingeniería mecánica Construction Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Scilab es un software de código abierto para computación numérica y análisis científico" February 20, 2023 5.0 En general, estoy muy impresionado con Scilab y lo recomiendo a cualquier persona que trabaje en campos técnicos que necesite una herramienta potente y versátil para el análisis numérico y científico. Pros Es una herramienta muy útil para la investigación, la educación y el desarrollo de proyectos técnicos, ya que ofrece una gran cantidad de herramientas y algoritmos para el análisis numérico, la simulación y la visualización de datos.Como ingeniero, he utilizado Scilab para análisis de datos y simulaciones, y he encontrado que es una herramienta muy poderosa y fácil de usar. Me encanta la gran cantidad de funciones matemáticas y herramientas disponibles que me permiten resolver problemas complejos y generar gráficos detallados.Otra de las ventajas de Scilab es que es completamente gratuito y de código abierto, lo que significa que cualquier persona puede descargarlo y utilizarlo sin costo alguno. Además, tiene una gran comunidad de usuarios y desarrolladores que proporcionan soporte y actualizaciones regulares.Por último, Scilab es compatible con varios sistemas operativos, lo que significa que puedes usarlo en cualquier plataforma, desde Windows hasta Mac y Linux. Cons Una de las desventajas de Scilab es que, al ser una herramienta de código abierto, puede ser menos conocida y utilizada que otros programas comerciales de análisis numérico. Esto significa que puede haber menos recursos y documentación disponible en línea para los usuarios de Scilab.Otra desventaja es que, aunque Scilab es muy potente, su interfaz puede ser menos intuitiva que la de otros programas de análisis numérico, lo que puede dificultar su uso para los usuarios que no están familiarizados con él.Por último, otra desventaja de Scilab es que, aunque ofrece una amplia variedad de herramientas y funciones matemáticas, algunos usuarios pueden encontrar que carece de características específicas que necesitan para sus proyectos. En estos casos, puede ser necesario buscar soluciones adicionales o complementarias para satisfacer las necesidades específicas del usuario. Review Source DR Daniel R. Research Assistant Mechanical or Industrial Engineering Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great software" March 26, 2019 5.0 Pros Scilab has a very clean interface and many functionalities. The best thing about it is that you can have it in your home for free and do a lot of work on it. Cons The support however is not even close when compared to the rival, it is quite harder to find more intrinsic features and helps. Review Source IU Ibraheem U. Student Education Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Scilab for easy Analysis " March 21, 2022 4.0 Pros Optimization feature is one of the best and it ability to import files from Matlab and other softwares Cons It's inability to perform some optimization analysis like goal programming problem Switched from [MATLAB](https://www.capterra.com/p/125813/MATLAB/) Because it's more affordable than Matlab Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Research Technologist Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Scilab is the ideal tool for numerical modelling and custom scripting!" April 7, 2018 5.0 Pros I like that it's open-source since this means you have a ton of tech-geeks working out solutions for troubleshooting online and you can always find the answers to a question you might have or post a question and receive help from a great support base of users! Cons Sometimes the graphics are temperamental, depending on your computer's operating system. Linux users seem to run into trouble more often. Review Source Leonardo D. Software Quality Analyst Intern Information Technology and Services Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Great tool to simulate and plot graphs of control systems" December 12, 2019 4.0 My experience is positive. It helped me a lot during the module of control and servo mechanism at university. Pros I was capable of creating a control system and plot the graphs of the step response with the tools offered. Cons Sometimes it was very difficult to learn how to use the proper tools and it could be a bit easier if there were more tips to help the users. Review Source SH Srinath H. Undergraduate Mechanical or Industrial Engineering Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Why i using Scilab .........." August 19, 2019 4.0 Good alternative for other commercial software packages. Pros As a open source software, it gives many facilities in the commercial software. Cons It interface is a command line interface not a graphical one. Review Source JZ Jure Z. Student Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Scilab instructions" April 6, 2021 4.0 Good programs for People who like to study modulations or solving mathematical problems. Identicals to some non free software. Easy to use. I need about less than 1 week to know everything about program. Really good Pros Free software, open-SOURCE, good metod for calculatuons, system dynamics Cons Less functions than familiar programs like matlab. Inactive users on forums. Review Source GGB GnimWazou Gaston B. Student Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Mon avis" October 29, 2022 5.0 Pros Scilab est le meilleur logiciel pour débuter la résolution des problèmes mathématiques par méthodes numérique. Très facile à utiliser, je vous le recommande. Cons Je le trouve plutôt complet, rien d'autre à suggérer Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Private Tutor Oil & Energy Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Perfect for your advanced calculations" August 2, 2019 5.0 Pros It is a perfect alternative to softwares like Matlab, it allows you to practically do the same and for free Cons Nothing bad to add, it seems just great. Review Source SP Surya P. Student Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Used this software for making a simluation project" May 21, 2018 4.0 Pros Scilab is an open source software. Availibility for various operating systems viz linux, mac and windows. Cons being open source it has less official support. community support cannot be reliable for thorough use Review Source Similar Products Featured ## Related categories [Statistical Analysis](https://www.capterra.com/statistical-analysis-software/)