GNU Octave is a high-level interpreted language, primarily intended
for numerical computations. It provides capabilities for the
numerical solution of linear and nonlinear problems, and for
performing other numerical experiments. It also provides extensive
graphics capabilities for data visualization and manipulation. GNU
Octave is normally used through its interactive interface (CLI and
GUI), but it can also be used to write non-interactive programs.
The GNU Octave language is quite similar to Matlab so that most
programs are easily portable.
GNU Octave is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
GNU Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with Octave; see the file COPYING. If not, see
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
Availability
The latest released version of Octave is always available from
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/ and many mirror sites around the
world. You may also find links to binary distributions at
https://www.octave.org/download.html. The current development
sources may be found under the Source Code tab on
Savannah.
Installation
Octave requires approximately 475 MB of disk storage to unpack and
compile from source (significantly more, 3.8 GB, if you compile with
debugging symbols). Once installed, Octave requires approximately
75 MB of disk space (again, considerably more, 415 MB, if you don’t
build shared libraries or the binaries and libraries include
debugging symbols).
To compile Octave, you will need a recent version of:
Octave’s Makefiles use features of GNU Make that are not present in
other versions of make. If you use f2c, you will need a script
like fort77 that works like a normal Fortran compiler by combining
f2c with your C compiler in a single script.
The files BUGS and doc/interpreter/bugs.txi explain the recommended
procedure for reporting bugs on the bug tracker
or contributing patches; online resources are also available
here.
Documentation
Octave’s manual is a
comprehensive user guide covering introductive and more advanced
topics.
Octave’s wiki is a user community page,
covering various topics and answering FAQ.
Octave’s Doxygen documentation
explains the C++ class libraries.
If you notice omissions or inconsistencies in the documentation, please
report them at our bug tracker. Specific suggestions for ways to improve
Octave and its documentation are always welcome. Reports with patches are
even more welcome.
GNU Octave – a high-level language for numerical computations
Copyright (C) 1996-2025 The Octave Project Developers
See the file COPYRIGHT.md in the top-level directory of this distribution or https://octave.org/copyright/.
Overview
GNU Octave is a high-level interpreted language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides capabilities for the numerical solution of linear and nonlinear problems, and for performing other numerical experiments. It also provides extensive graphics capabilities for data visualization and manipulation. GNU Octave is normally used through its interactive interface (CLI and GUI), but it can also be used to write non-interactive programs. The GNU Octave language is quite similar to Matlab so that most programs are easily portable.
GNU Octave is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
GNU Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Octave; see the file COPYING. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
Availability
The latest released version of Octave is always available from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/ and many mirror sites around the world. You may also find links to binary distributions at https://www.octave.org/download.html. The current development sources may be found under the Source Code tab on Savannah.
Installation
Octave requires approximately 475 MB of disk storage to unpack and compile from source (significantly more, 3.8 GB, if you compile with debugging symbols). Once installed, Octave requires approximately 75 MB of disk space (again, considerably more, 415 MB, if you don’t build shared libraries or the binaries and libraries include debugging symbols).
To compile Octave, you will need a recent version of:
Octave’s Makefiles use features of GNU Make that are not present in other versions of make. If you use
f2c, you will need a script likefort77that works like a normal Fortran compiler by combiningf2cwith your C compiler in a single script.See the file INSTALL.OCTAVE or the wiki at https://wiki.octave.org/Building for more detailed installation instructions.
Bugs and Patches
The files BUGS and
doc/interpreter/bugs.txiexplain the recommended procedure for reporting bugs on the bug tracker or contributing patches; online resources are also available here.Documentation
If you notice omissions or inconsistencies in the documentation, please report them at our bug tracker. Specific suggestions for ways to improve Octave and its documentation are always welcome. Reports with patches are even more welcome.
Additional Information
The Octave website is https://www.octave.org, and there is a forum at https://octave.discourse.group/.