Sage 6.3

Sage, also known as SAGE (System for Algebra and Geometry Experimentation) is mathematical software. It has many features that cover many aspects of mathematics, including algebra, numerical mathematics, calculus, number theory, and combinatorics. It was originally release back on February 24, 2005, which it was advertised as free and open sourced software under the terms of a GPL (General Public License). Sage uses Python, supporting procedural, functional, and object oriented constructs. 

Sage is an open source alternative to other mathematical applications such as Magma, Maple, Mathematica, and MATLAB. Over the years, it has made a name for itself has being a logical choice alternative and a good competitor to the other, more well known software out there. Being open sourced, Sage opens up a lot of possibilities for updates and customization within the application that the others wouldn't be able to offer.

There are many great features that come along with Sage that makes it a good alternative to the other well known software of it's class. It has a browser based notebook for review and reusing previous inputs and outputs, which includes graphics and text annotations. This is also compatible with the most commonly used browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

This application also comes with a text based command line interface using Python, support for parallel processing using mult-core processors or more than one processor, calculus using Maxima and SymPy, 2D and 3D graphs, matrix manipulation, and a lot more. Having as many features as Sage does makes it a tough competitor to the others, and of course starts from the fact it is an open sourced application which allows a lot of input of the features being adding to the application to be given. This means more features for you.