Matlab vs Simulink user base?

What is the number of "matlab" users compared to the number of "simulink" users? (Meaning what is the number of users that primarily use Simulink over Matlab)

This is a practical question. I am not trying to start a religious debate. We are ate a decision point in our development group, and we are asking ourselves lots of questions about our tools and our development process.

We can read marketing literature and we can read convincing arguments about any tool or process, but seeing how people "vote" with their choice of "day to day" tool choice says a lot.

In the end people will gravitate towards the solution that works best for them, and I am curious to see what the current "count" is for the "matlab camp" and the "simulink camp"...

Do these numbers exist in some form?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

I have no idea what sales are like. The closest I can come is to use the product selector to the left of the page here to get an estimate of the fraction of the questions that are asked about Simulink. However that does not necessarily tell us anything more than the fraction studying in university since quite a large portion of questions here are from university students.

I have no idea how universities and industry decide whether to ask questions here or not. I know that the largest university in my province teaches MATLAB but I have never seen anyone there ask a question here, or contact me. A few days ago I noticed a research/industrial company in my city that advertises offering MATLAB solutions (among others) but I had never heard of them or any of their employees before. And people in markets like automotive never seem to ask questions here, other than perhaps a very small number of questions about the CAN blocks. So I don't think we can actually use the questions here to understand the demands in the wild.

Personally the only use I have had for Simulink has been to answer questions about Simulink. But that more tells you that I grew up in the procedural language side and never happened to work in simulation or model based design. I have also never happened to work in Game development, or graphic design, or any of a large number of other large fields, so that's a "I wouldn't know" rather than a "those are small and unimportant"

I think we would need to know more about what your organization produces to give better opinions...