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Wolfram Mathematica vs Maxima: catalog facts
Wolfram Mathematica	Maxima
Paid Commercial software sold under paid licences.	Free Free and open source under the GPL.
Windows, macOS, Linux	Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
Symbolic mathematics alongside numerical computation Interactive notebooks that mix code, results and text	Broad symbolic maths: calculus, ODEs, linear algebra, tensors Exact and arbitrary-precision arithmetic
Commercial licence required Proprietary language and file format	The core program is a plain terminal interface Lisp heritage and syntax take some learning
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Closed source	Open source
License: Proprietary	License: GPL-3.0-or-later
Not stated if an account is needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.