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MathWorks Matlab vs Starburst Galaxy comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

MathWorks Matlab
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
17th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Starburst Galaxy
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
7th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
2.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of MathWorks Matlab is 2.0%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Starburst Galaxy is 1.5%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Starburst Galaxy1.5%
MathWorks Matlab2.0%
Other96.5%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

RB
Business Owner at SASS GmbH
Versatile system empowers users with advanced algorithm development and seamless integration capabilities
The application is pretty good, and I don't really complain. For my purposes, MathWorks Matlab is perfect because it's very versatile; it is not out-of-the-box of course, and you have to program everything yourself. If you are experienced enough, you can do many things which other programs, for instance, SPSS, cannot do, as you need to program it—it's a fourth-generation programming language. In the future of MathWorks Matlab, I would appreciate the addition of many AI features, as there are a lot of machine learning capabilities and many AI features in the visual scene, although I don't need those because I use this feature data and don't work on pictures or images. However, you can work on images and can then do deep learning and that stuff, which is one of the real strengths of MathWorks Matlab.
Pedromachado Ventura - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Analyst at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Unified SQL layer has streamlined access to distributed historical data for analytics and reporting
One area that I think could be improved is the experience when performance issues occur. When a query is slow, it is not always immediately obvious to me whether the bottleneck comes from Starburst Galaxy itself, the underlying data source, the query design, or the reporting tool. Better visibility into query performance and easier diagnostics for non-administrators would be useful. Another potential improvement would be enhancing the experience with BI tools to make it more seamless. I work a lot with Power BI, and when you are working with larger data sets, performance can sometimes depend on several different layers. Having more visibility into what is happening between the BI tool, Starburst Galaxy, and the underlying source would be helpful. I also think onboarding could be a little more accessible for analysts. There is good technical documentation, but sometimes I just need to understand the best way to approach a common use case without diving too deep into the platform architecture. The main improvement would be troubleshooting. I have not used the AI capabilities extensively, so I cannot give a detailed assessment. I am not sure if my organization has the full capabilities of Starburst Galaxy, but I think adding AI on top of the data layer is interesting, especially if it can help users discover data, understand data sets, and interact with them more naturally. For governance and security, one of the strengths of Starburst Galaxy is that you can centralize access to data while still controlling what different users are allowed to see. Role-based access, fine-grained permissions, and data masking are important because giving people easier access to data should not mean giving everyone access to everything. I think that is even more important than any AI capabilities that are introduced. If you do introduce AI, I think it should respect exactly the same data permissions and governance rules as the user that is accessing the data.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"This solution is pretty good, I truly enjoy it."
"Making digital twins saves significant time; checking something in simulation is more cost-effective—for instance, with marine engines, we typically need about 10 years of checking to find misfires, but with MathWorks Matlab, we can complete it in one month."
"Personally for me, because I do a lot of development, I like that it is easy to test mathematical algorithms with several matrix calculations. It's perfect for that."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the Simulink environment. This feature provides an incredible capability to visually represent the system behavior before creating the code. It allows you to see the flow and interactions of the system, which is extremely beneficial for software development. With this visual representation, you can better understand the system's behavior, make necessary adjustments, and ensure maintenance and updates. This capability is why I love working with the product."
"What I appreciate about MathWorks Matlab is that it is the most versatile program system I know; there are so many toolboxes which I don't need, as I mostly work with statistics, but it's amazing how many functions there are."
"The platform's most valuable feature is its field-specific packages, which make it very easy to use."
"The main positive impact Starburst Galaxy has made is making data more accessible for analytics and reporting."
"Starburst Galaxy has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to rethink the strategy for data and architect data differently; instead of having multiple data marts and siloed data marts, we have a unified vision, and that is how it is changing."
"Starburst Galaxy serves as our primary SQL-based data processing engine, a strategic decision driven by its seamless integration with our AWS cloud infrastructure and its ability to deliver high performance with low-latency responses."
"Starburst has provided us with virtually guaranteed performance on complex queries across datasets that are in the tens of gigabytes which complete in seconds."
"I use Starburst as a cost-efficient hosted option for Trino for data integration and ad-hoc analysis across a broad range of data sources."
"Starburst on Trino, combined with our SQL-native data transformation tool SQLMesh, has delivered anywhere from a two to five times improvement in compute performance across our transformation DAG."
"I am now able to answer questions in a couple of minutes that would otherwise take hours or days of time for my data engineering teams."
"Starburst Galaxy is becoming a cornerstone of our data platform, empowering us to make smarter and faster decisions across the organization."
 

Cons

"In the area of improvement, sometimes there are issues with the speed of MathWorks Matlab, particularly in the Simulink environment. The tool's latest versions can be slow to open, taking significant time to load. Additionally, saving data and integrating models can also be time-consuming processes."
"The cost is a significant concern; while university pricing is reasonable, a cheaper version with fewer libraries would be beneficial."
"It is not out-of-the-box of course, and you have to program everything yourself."
"To make use of the GPU, you have to have an Nvidia card. What I would want it to do is to run in Next Generation with Intel or AMD, and not just with Nvidia."
"To make use of the GPU, you have to have an Nvidia card."
"One area where the product could improve is in the ease of learning."
"I would like to see better alerting integrations for failures and errors in scheduled tasks and maintenance jobs."
"Multi-tenancy could be improved. In order to have multiple environments for SSO, we maintain multiple tenants that are connected to different AWS accounts via the Marketplace."
"There is still room for improved usability and diagnostics, especially for users who are not platform specialists."
"I would like Starburst to leverage AI to improve usability. Data lakes are complicated and difficult for users to explore."
"Cluster startup time can be slow, sometimes taking over a minute."
"As a hosted option, I wish I had more control over the cluster configuration, specifically regarding some of the more advanced options."
"The most persistent issue is the cluster spin-up time."
"<p>Starburst Galaxy can be improved by discovering unstructured data and building in streaming ingestion because we are currently using Kafka for that purpose.</p>"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for the software itself is reasonable, and I didn't encounter any additional costs beyond the initial purchase or license."
"We have a single user license. Support and add-ons are an extra fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MathWorks Matlab?
Regarding the pricing part and licensing cost for MathWorks Matlab, it is not cheap, but it depends on the functions you need. You don't need all of them; you may just require a few and then it's r...
What needs improvement with MathWorks Matlab?
The application is pretty good, and I don't really complain. For my purposes, MathWorks Matlab is perfect because it's very versatile; it is not out-of-the-box of course, and you have to program ev...
What is your primary use case for MathWorks Matlab?
I am working with MathWorks Matlab for statistics and machine learning, though I don't know which version I have, but I guess it is 21 or so. I don't care because the things I'm doing haven't chang...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Starburst Galaxy?
I recommend experimenting with different cluster sizes to determine what works best for your particular use case.
What needs improvement with Starburst Galaxy?
One area that I think could be improved is the experience when performance issues occur. When a query is slow, it is not always immediately obvious to me whether the bottleneck comes from Starburst...
What is your primary use case for Starburst Galaxy?
I have mainly used Starburst Galaxy as a query and access layer for analytical data, as my current work involves dealing with data stored across different platforms, including Hive and SingleStore....
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about MathWorks Matlab vs. Starburst Galaxy and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.