Comparison of Ease-of-Use Features in

Mathematica 14 and Maple 2024

Summary
Ensuring ease of operation is particularly important for a system as vast as Mathematica. A steady focus on
automation and good user-interface design has meant that Mathematica has become progressively easier to
use even as its computational capabilities have grown.

Maplesoft claims that Maple is easier to use than Mathematica, but a systematic cataloging of ease-of-use
features shows that Maple supports almost none of the tools, hints or good design principles that are built into
Mathematica.

Code editing
Mathematica Details Maple
Chat-powered code Use an AI-based chat to help your write code by describing the task in Maple provides
writing words. an AI dialog for
formula lookup.
It is not inte-
grated into its
Worksheet, has
no conversation
history and has
no access to live
tools.

The assistant has live access to Wolfram|Alpha data and the Wolfram
Language documentation and can evaluate code. It maintains the
context of an ongoing conversation together with the other contents of
the notebook.
2

Mathematica Details Maple

AI-powered code Click on the AI feedback icon next to the input and output and the AI None
feedback assistant will provide feedback on your code, taking into account the
context of preceding calculations.

Autocompletion: Type the start, middle or abbreviation of a command, and Mathematica Maple returns
function names automatically provides completion choices. Just press return to save only matches
typing the rest. that start with
the given
characters

Autocompletion: Mouse over a command or use a keystroke after typing a command, and Maple provides
command templates you are offered standard usage templates. Select one by mouse or templates only
keyboard and then tab between the arguments as you fill them in. via keyboard
access.

Autocompletion: The matching closing bracket or quotes can be created automatically for
delimiter matching you without moving the cursor. ×
Autocompletion: Start typing a string in a place where there are finite choices, and Mathe-
strings matica will offer you autocompletions.

✓
 3

Mathematica Details Maple

Autocompletion: Some autocompletions, such as styles, fonts and colors, are shown with
iconic preview visual cues, so you can see what the effect of the choice will be.

Autocompletion: path Start typing a file name, and Mathematica helps you navigate your files Provided only in
browser system. code-edit
regions, not in
Worksheets.

Inline evaluation You can evaluate part of an input expression in place to simplify your
input without having to do a side calculation.

×
Generalized input You can use any formatted content in Mathematica input, not just typeset
math or text. Input can include images, 3D images, geometry, graphs,
color swatches and more. Code is easier to write and easier to read.

×
4

Mathematica Details Maple

Iconized input You can collapse large input into an icon that makes your notebooks
easier to read while still saving all data in the same file. Use the icon as
input, or expand it to see the contents.

Code reformatting Apply automated line breaks and indentation to make your code more
readable.

Extend selection Multi-click inside a math expression or use a keyboard shortcut to extend
the selection in a mathematically valid way.

Custom notations You can create your own 2D mathematical typeset notations for input or
output. ×
Edit during evaluation In Mathematica, you can continue to edit the working document while
long calculations are being performed. ×
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Mathematica Details Maple

Customizable input You can set up your own aliases for any content that you type or insert
aliases frequently. These can insert text, typeset math or images. Aliases also
appear on the autocompletion prompts. Mathematica comes with a
collection of predefined shortcuts. For example, type “del” and the
autocompletion shows:

Click on the autocomplete or finish typing “del2” and the 2D struc-

ture using the Del character (Unicode 8711) and placeholders appears in
its place:

Error detection
Mathematica Details Maple
Syntax coloring: Mismatched brackets are automatically colored to highlight the
bracket matching error.
×
Syntax coloring: Functions that require more arguments than you have provided are
missing arguments highlighted with a marker.
×
Syntax coloring: If you enter too many arguments for a function, Mathematica highlights
excess arguments the excess arguments.
×
Syntax coloring: Undefined symbols (usually because you have misremembered or mis-
undefined symbols spelled a function name) are automatically colored blue.
×
Syntax coloring: Mathematica automatically highlights option names that do not apply
unrecognized options where you have entered them.
×
6

Mathematica Details Maple

Syntax coloring: If you try to localize the same variable name twice, Mathematica high- Parsing errors
scoping conflicts lights it to warn you. are reported in a
dialog for code-
edit regions
only.
Syntax coloring: code Comments are automatically colored gray so that they are easily distin-
comments guished from code.
×
Syntax coloring: string Strings are colored dark gray to distinguish them in your
content code.
×
Syntax coloring: The start and end of the function immediately surrounding the cursor are
current function highlighted automatically so that you can more clearly see where you are
in complex nested expressions. ×
Number formatting Mathematica automatically displays long numbers with additional spac-
ing between digit blocks to make them easier to read.
×
Real-time Mathematica automatically underlines misspelled words as soon as you In Maple, you
spellchecking have typed them. must manually
invoke
spellchecking.

Visual hinting of Both Mathematica’s and Maple’s interfaces provide REPL interfaces where
computation
dependency
outputs are displayed alongside inputs. If you edit the input without
reevaluating it so the output no longer matches, Mathematica warns you ×
by automatically fading the out-of-date output.
Code analysis Select code in the notebook and Mathematica will analyze the code for Maple provides
potential errors. In some cases it will offer to correct the code automati- command line
cally. tools with
similar analysis
capabilities but
not auto-
correction.
 7

Mathematica Details Maple

Error source feedback Error messages in Mathematica are accompanied by a “Stack Trace”
button that displays information on the computational history that led to
the error.

Interacting with output

Mathematica Details Maple
Image editor Click any image in Mathematica, and a toolbar automatically appears
providing point-and-click tools for selecting regions, cropping, transform-
ing, masking, image information and more.

Image editor 3D Click a 3D image (voxel data), and a toolbar appears providing point-and- Maple does not
click tools for coloring, clipping, information and more. support 3D
images.
8

Mathematica Details Maple

Color swatches Colors appear as visual swatches. Mouse over them for numeric specifica-
tion, or click them to interact with the values.

Drawing tools You can manually annotate graphics and edit generated graphics ele-
ments in Mathematica using a drawing tools palette.

Elided forms Many computations return complex results that are intended as inputs for Maple provides
further computation. similar function-
Mathematica provides a uniform way to present the key information for ality for arrays,
these while hiding excess details. For large expressions, you can decide audio and
whether all information necessary to repeat the computation is stored in graphs only.
the elided display, automatically linked to a cloud or local storage object When Maple
or discarded. presents sum-
mary displays,
the information
to reproduce
the output is
discarded from
the document.
 9

Mathematica Details Maple

Large-output When any very large expression is returned to the notebook, Mathematica
suppression automatically presents a compact view that displays the start and end of
the expression and an indication of the amount of omitted content. The
following example would take around 300 pages to fully display.

Tooltips in graphics Mathematica graphics incorporate tooltips to provide extra information

without increasing the complexity of the image. For example, mouse over
a box in a box-whisker plot, and you get statistics on that dataset.

Context-sensitive The menu that appears when you right-click content depends on the type
menus of content selected.

Automation & convenience

Mathematica Details Maple
Predefined document Mathematica provides over 20 document stylesheets that collect together Maple provides
styles coherent style choices for title, section, text, math, etc. to let you create a only one
great-looking document quickly. You can also create your own stylesheet. stylesheet,
though you can
create your own.
10

Mathematica Details Maple

Predefined graphics Mathematica provides a collection of predefined styles as an alternative
styles to setting all of the different options separately.

Predefined color
schemes

×
Automatic Mathematica automatically converts URLs in text into active hyperlinks.
hyperlinking ×
Automatic reference Mathematica provides counter objects that track the position of them- Maple supports
tracking selves or other content in the notebook to display correct numbering. only for Equa-
Objects include Chapter, Section, Subsection, PageNumber and more. tions and Tables.
Automatic code Mathematica can automatically reformat code using additional line
formatting breaks and white space to indent code for easy reading. You can control
the balance between code density and “airiness.”
×
Alternate language Mathematica notebooks can contain Python, SQL, Julia, R, Octave, Ruby
cells or Node.js code cells. Results are automatically converted to Wolfram
Language representations.

TeX input Enter TeX directly into notebooks and it is formatted immediately using
the Wolfram Notebook typesetting. ×
Plotting: automatic Mathematica plots can automatically choose their plot ranges to ensure Maple provides
range selection that the majority of the plot yields useful information. this functional-
ity only for 2D
plots.
Plotting: automatic Mathematica adaptively increases sampling in 2D and 3D plots in areas of Maple supports
resampling high curvature to give accurate yet efficient visualizations. this in 2D only
 11

Mathematica Details Maple

Plotting: automatic Mathematica automatically detects discontinuities in many plots to Maple provides
branch-cut detection accurately depict the break. this functional-
ity only for 2D
plots.

Plotting: automatic By default, Mathematica automatically makes some features, such as

point sizing points, smaller if there are many of them in a single visualization. ×
Plotting: automatic Mathematica can use symbolic wrappers for data points to automatically
point label positioning place labels, callouts or tooltips on plotted points, automatically optimiz-
ing their locations to avoid overlap.

Automatic import Mathematica supports over 250 different import and export filters for Maple supports
filters data, images, sound, video, graphs, geometry and more. 56 formats.
Progress monitoring Some slow operations, such as training neural networks, provide progress
indicators and estimates of completion time.

×
12

Mathematica Details Maple

Parallel evaluation When performing parallel computations over multiple cores or remote
progress tracking computers, you can see the progress made and the projected completion
time.

×
Remote batch Once set up with account credentials, Mathematica automates the pro-
submission cess of submitting batch evaluations in cloud environments such as
Amazon and Azure. Cloud computers are provisioned and provided with
Mathematica licenses: tasks are scheduled, results retrieved and
instances deleted all with a single command.

Help
Mathematica Details Maple
Evaluatable help Mathematica help contains over 10,000 examples. The help also acts as a
sandbox where you can edit and experiment with the examples in situ,
without changing them permanently.
×
Suggestion Bar Mathematica automatically suggests calculations you may wish to per-
form next after each calculation. Just click to perform the action. You can
even roll together several steps to automatically write programs.
✓
Mouseover help box Mouse over a command in Mathematica and see a tooltip reminding you
what the function does and its typical arguments.

×
 13

Mathematica Details Maple

Help on errors When an error is generated, it includes a hyperlink to documentation on
the error, including example causes.

Command-line help Evaluating ?name returns help on name without leaving the working
notebook. Mathematica displays information in an expandable form that
organizes basic definitions, options and attributes with links to the full
documentation.

Natural language Type a short English phrase and have Wolfram|Alpha translate it into a
input Wolfram Language expression.

You can even do it in the middle of an expression—for example, to choose

×
the right unit names.
14

Mathematica Details Maple

Readable function While good programming-language design is too complex to summarize
names in this document, one simple aspect can be seen in the choice of function
names. Mathematica uses a consistent set of naming conventions for its
functions, mostly using full English words like FactorInteger, Lin-
earProgramming, Integrate, Counts, ContinuedFraction and
Gamma, making code readable and names easier to predict.

Maple follows this convention for recently added functions, but most of its
older functionality is inconsistent in the use of case and abbreviation,
making it harder to learn and remember. For example, the Maple equiva-
lents to the above functions are called ifactor, LPSolve, Int, num-
boccur, cfrac and GAMMA.

International support
Mathematica Details Maple
Local language Mathematica provides real-time spellchecking in over 25 languages. Maple has
spellchecking English
spellchecking
only, and it isn’t
in real time.

Code captions Mathematica can automatically display captions over code to clarify its
meaning in 12 different languages.

Maple is a trademark of Waterloo Maple Inc.