MATLAB (matrix laboratory) is a multi-paradigm numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language. Developed by The MathWorks
License: Commercial
MATLAB is a powerful commercial software suite aimed at advanced mathematical computations and engineering tasks, while GnuPlot is an open-source tool focused primarily on data visualization. MATLAB offers extensive features and support for various applications, but comes at a cost, whereas GnuPlot is free but may lack some advanced functionalities.