MATLAB variants?

[Maritan]

Has anybody tried the variants to MATLAB? Two that I know are:

1. Octave - www.octave.org, and
2. SciLab - www.scilab.org.

Both of them are freewares. And both are supposedly compatible with MATLAB. However, I haven't been able to test either of them or read through their websites yet to see how good compatibility is.

Has anyone used either of these packages? Comparisons with MATLAB in terms of performance (speed), included functions etc.?

I would be grateful to anybody who has something constructive to say.

Thanks!

[manitoubalck]

I use Octave, It is compatable with matlab (which my Uni uses,) however some of the code is slightly different. But it's easy to change.

[abhishekit]

sorry to be digressing from the topic..but can i get binaries for either of them...till now i use matlab on my linux machine which is in school...so i remote login to run it on my ibook...a free software like these would help...i went to the sites but couldnt find the binary version..

cheers

abhi