BoxLang vs. Clojure vs. Java vs. RunMat Comparison Chart

Clojure is a robust, practical, and fast programming language with a set of useful features that together form a simple, coherent, and powerful tool. Clojure is a dynamic, general-purpose programming language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming. Clojure is a compiled language, yet remains completely dynamic, every feature supported by Clojure is supported at runtime. Clojure provides easy access to the Java frameworks, with optional type hints and type inference, to ensure that calls to Java can avoid reflection. Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and shares with Lisp the code-as-data philosophy and a powerful macro system. Clojure is predominantly a functional programming language and features a rich set of immutable, persistent data structures. When a mutable state is needed, Clojure offers a software transactional memory system and reactive Agent system.

RunMat (by Dystr) is a fast, free, open-source alternative for running MATLAB code. Users can run their existing MATLAB code with complete language grammar and core semantics. No license fees, no lock-in. RunMat is built with a modern compiler, which enables blazing-fast calculations. It boots in 5 milliseconds, GPU optimization is enabled by default, and it's a single, compact, cross-platform binary. Typical engineering use cases - Controls/signal processing & numerics: accelerate MATLAB-style loops plus heavy linear algebra; enjoy faster iteration due to instant startup and tiered JIT. - Batch/CI & serverless jobs: snapshots + compact binaries make it easy to run .m workloads in containers or ephemeral runners at scale. - Plot-heavy workflows: interactive GPU plots for exploratory analysis and reportable exports for stakeholders. - Education: remove license friction and start labs instantly; Jupyter kernel supports reproducible worksheets.