Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

IGOR Pro VS GnuPlot

Compare IGOR Pro VS GnuPlot and see what are their differences

IGOR Pro logo IGOR Pro

Technical graphing and data analysis for Macintosh and Windows.

GnuPlot logo GnuPlot

Gnuplot is a portable command-line driven interactive data and function plotting utility.
  • IGOR Pro Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-16
  • GnuPlot Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-13

IGOR Pro features and specs

  • Data Analysis Capabilities
    IGOR Pro offers extensive data analysis tools, including curve fitting, signal processing, and statistical analysis, making it highly suitable for scientific research applications.
  • Graphing and Visualization
    The software provides powerful graphing capabilities, allowing users to create detailed and publication-quality graphs and visualizations.
  • Customizability
    IGOR Pro is flexible and customizable through its programming environment, enabling users to create custom functions, automate tasks, and adapt the software to specific research needs.
  • Community and Support
    A strong, active user community and comprehensive support from WaveMetrics help users to troubleshoot problems and optimize their use of the software.

Possible disadvantages of IGOR Pro

  • Steep Learning Curve
    New users may find the software complex and challenging to learn due to its extensive functionalities and scripting capabilities.
  • Cost
    Compared to some free or lower-cost alternatives, IGOR Pro can be expensive, which might be a significant consideration for individuals or small research teams with limited budgets.
  • Interface Design
    Some users find the user interface of IGOR Pro to be outdated and less intuitive compared to more modern applications, which can affect ease of use.
  • Limited Integrations
    While powerful for standalone data analysis, IGOR Pro may have limited integration capabilities with some modern third-party applications or tools.

GnuPlot features and specs

  • Highly Customizable
    GnuPlot offers extensive customization options for creating plots, allowing users to tweak almost every aspect of the graph, including colors, labels, line styles, and more.
  • Scriptable
    GnuPlot can be driven by scripts, making it convenient for automating complex plots and integrating with other software workflows.
  • Wide Range of Output Formats
    It supports many output formats such as PNG, PDF, SVG, and EPS, making it easy to generate graphics for different purposes like presentations, publications, and web content.
  • Cross-Platform
    GnuPlot runs on multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, ensuring that it can be used in diverse computing environments.
  • Complex Plotting Capabilities
    GnuPlot supports a wide variety of plots, including 2D and 3D plots, histograms, heatmaps, and more, which caters to the needs of advanced visualization requirements.
  • Performance
    GnuPlot is efficient and can handle large datasets with ease, offering fast rendering times which is crucial when dealing with complex visualizations.
  • Free and Open Source
    Being free and open-source software, GnuPlot is accessible to everyone, and users can modify the source code to suit their needs.

Possible disadvantages of GnuPlot

  • Steep Learning Curve
    GnuPlot has a complex syntax and a steep learning curve, especially for beginners who may find it difficult to get started without substantial effort.
  • Limited GUI
    GnuPlot lacks a full-featured graphical user interface (GUI), making it less user-friendly for those who prefer point-and-click interactions over scripting.
  • Documentation
    While comprehensive, the documentation can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate for new users trying to find specific information quickly.
  • Date Handling
    Handling and formatting dates can be cumbersome in GnuPlot, requiring more manual setup compared to other dedicated plotting tools.
  • Interactive Features
    GnuPlot's interactive plotting capabilities are limited compared to other modern plotting tools that offer more dynamic and real-time interactivity.
  • Integration
    Integration with some modern programming environments and languages may not be as seamless as with other plotting libraries specifically designed for those ecosystems (e.g., Matplotlib in Python).

IGOR Pro videos

No IGOR Pro videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

GnuPlot videos

Gnuplot Introduction

More videos:

  • Review - DTrace Latency Visualization in gnuplot
  • Review - Basics of Gnuplot - Make your plot look Good

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to IGOR Pro and GnuPlot)
Technical Computing
27 27%
73% 73
Numerical Computation
29 29%
71% 71
Office & Productivity
100 100%
0% 0
Data Visualization
16 16%
84% 84

User comments

Share your experience with using IGOR Pro and GnuPlot. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, GnuPlot seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 5 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

IGOR Pro mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of IGOR Pro yet. Tracking of IGOR Pro recommendations started around Mar 2021.

GnuPlot mentions (5)

  • Question about Project Management
    To some extent it extends the concept of tasks which only can be reasonably executed after the completion of other ones (though results of branches eventually may join each other) and offers an additional assisting birds' eye visual of projects. So far, I'm aware about the documentation on worg interfacing org-taskjuggler and taskjuggler, as well as a video tutorial interfacing gnuplot instead. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • How do I make a transparent background on .ps or .eps file imported to groff
    Gnuplot is a program to plot diagrams. The Commands issued to use it don't change regardless if it is used in Linux/Windows/MacOS and it comes with less dependencies than a Spread sheet, or a statistics program. This is why I started to Become comfortable with it, and venture out some of its features. Here, "conditional plot" referred to "the diagram only displays a Thing/uses a pixel if the value in the table... Source: about 2 years ago
  • Drawing graphs and diagrams
    Or, does drawing diagrams refers to plotting data, but neither using matplotlib, nor gnuplot (export to .svg, .pdf, .png; pstricks, tikz to mention a few options)? Source: about 2 years ago
  • Are specific softwares avialable that are suitable for converting different diagrams, graphs and mindmaps to latex codes?
    There may the occasion you actually need the data from a publication, and want to plot them altogether with data newly collected data in one diagram in common. An overlay, though possible, can become tricky (scaling, centering, alignment, etc.) and plotting all data in a diagram generated from scratch (gnuplot/octave, matplotlib, Origin, ...) exported as an illustration in the usual formats (.pdf/.png), or... Source: over 2 years ago
  • Introducing Graphs
    Have you looked at the graphing capabilities of Octave or Gnuplot? Gnuplot in particular has a lot of options, and a GUI for those who want it. Source: over 2 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing IGOR Pro and GnuPlot, you can also consider the following products

SciDaVis - SciDAVis is a free application for Scientific Data Analysis and Visualization.

GeoGebra - GeoGebra is free and multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for learning and teaching.

OriginPro - OriginLab OriginPro is a comprehensive interface-based data management platform that allows users to calculate or visualize the data insights in various fields like engineering, scientific domain, or multi-sector industrial stats.

Matplotlib - matplotlib is a python 2D plotting library which produces publication quality figures in a variety...

LabPlot - LabPlot is a KDE-application for interactive graphing and analysis of scientific data.

RStudio - RStudio™ is a new integrated development environment (IDE) for R.