MathPad vs Xcas

MathPad is an AI math workspace for solving, explaining, and teaching math. Its SnapSolve tool reads handwritten or printed math from a photo, then returns a step-by-step solution with CAS verification. The AI Tutor offers interactive conversations, hints, guidance, concept explanations, and work verification. A math editor supports LaTeX, AsciiMath, MathML, Typst, and MathJSON with live preview; OCR can extract equations and text together. Document conversion supports more than 21 formats, including PDF, DOCX, LaTeX, EPUB, and Jupyter notebooks. Add-ons work in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms, while the Office add-in supports Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on desktop and Office Online. MathPad also offers public APIs for LaTeX-to-image rendering and math-format conversion. It runs on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, web, and Windows, plus an extension. The free plan has 10 daily credits and three AI Tutor trial messages per day; paid plans start at $14.99/mo.

Xcas is a free interface for computer algebra, geometry, graphs, spreadsheets, statistics, and programming. Its symbolic tools include arbitrary-precision arithmetic, polynomial operations, simplification, equation solving, calculus, and linear algebra. Users can build programmable dynamic 2-D geometry and work with 3-D geometry and graphs. The spreadsheet supports relative and absolute references, formal objects in cells, and one- and two-dimensional statistics, including regressions. Programming features include functions, variables, tests, loops, an editor, a debugger, and C-like, Maple, MuPAD, and TI89 syntax modes. Xcas runs on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, web, and Windows. The browser version can work locally without installation or an internet connection, though it is less complete and slower than compiled desktop versions. The Giac library can be used from C++, Python, Java, and JavaScript programs; the site also describes LaTeX and TeXmacs interfaces. Xcas is free under GPL3, but commercial software inclusion requires contacting the makers about a dual license. The site offers tutorials, guides, a forum, and documentation, which it calls incomplete on its English overview.