Macs in Chemistry

Insanely great science

Data Analysis Applications for Mac OS X

A few years ago Scott Hannahs compiled a fabulous list of the tools for Data Analysis available for Mac OS X for the SciTech mailing list and I thought it would be useful to spread the word, since then many people have contacted me and the list has grown. Remember that many of the more expensive applications have free/cheap academic or student versions. Updated 5 March 2012.
Click on the column headers to sort

ApplicationPriceLinkUpdated
R$0http://www.r-project.org/22/10/2010
Generic Mapping Tools$0http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/20/02/2007
vvidget$0http://www.vvidget.org/20/02/2007
Grace$0http://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/Grace20/02/2007
Ctioga2$0http://ctioga2.rubyforge.org/12/02/2011
gnuplot$0http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/gnuplot/08/02/2007
Qgfe$0http://www.xm1math.net/qgfe/08/02/2007
gdl$0http://gnudatalanguage.sourceforge.net/08/02/2007
Octave$0http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/octave08/02/2007
RL Plot$0http://rlplot.sourceforge.net/08/02/2007
Plot$0http://plot.micw.eu/Main/HomePage/08/02/2007
Regress+$0http://www.causascientia.org/software/Regress_plus.html16/12/2007
vtk$0http://www.vtk.org/08/02/2007
Visit/vtk$0http://www.llnl.gov/visit/08/02/2007
Python+Matplotlib$0http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/08/02/2007
PGPLOT$0http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/pgplot/08/02/2007
plplot$0http://plplot.sourceforge.net/08/02/2007
ParaView/vtk$0http://www.paraview.org/HTML/Index.html08/02/2007
Grapher$0http://www.apple.com/08/02/2007
HippoDraw$0http://www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/ek/hippodraw/08/02/2007
Venuz$0http://home.gna.org/veusz/08/02/2008
QtiPlot$0http://soft.proindependent.com/qtiplot.html08/02/2007
DataGraph 2.3.1$90http://www.visualdatatools.com/DataPlot/index.html23/01/2011
Graphing Calculator$60http://www.pacifict.com//08/02/2007
pro Fit 6.1.6$95http://www.quansoft.com/07/01/2008
3D Data Visualizer Pro$39http://www.optunis.com/08/02/2007
Graph Sketcher$30http://www.graphsketcher.com/08/02/2007
XYVue$8http://www.damhave.com/XyVue/XyVue.html08/02/2007
OpenDX$25http://www.vizsolutions.com/08/02/2007
CISM_DX$0http://www.bu.edu/cism/cismdx/08/02/2007
Aabel$575http://www.gigawiz.com/15/12/2008
Citrin$120http://www.gigawiz.com/08/02/2007
Deltagraph 6.0$299http://www.redrocksw.com/28/08/2010
Igor$85-550http://www.wavemetrics.com/08/02/2007
SmileLab$495http://www.satimage.fr/software/08/02/2007
GraphPad Prism$595http://www.graphpad.com/prism/Prism.htm08/02/2007
KalidaGraph$200http://www.synergy.com/08/02/2007
DataDesk$715http://www.datadesk.com/31/08/2011
MatLab$1900http://www.mathworks.com/08/10/2008
Mathematica 8.0 for Mac OS X 10$300-2495http://www.wolfram.com/18/02/2009
IDL$2400http://ittvis.com/idl/idl7.asp08/02/2007
DataTank$1195http://www.visualdatatools.com/08/02/2007
Tecplot$3750http://www.tecplot.com/08/11/2011
Tecplot Focus$1500http://www.tecplot.com/products/focus/focus_main.htm20/02/2007
Jmp 9$1195http://www.jmp.com/08/02/2007
Stata 11$2745http://www.stata.com/27/07/2009
Maple with 1 yr EMP & Home use.$1895http://www.maplesoft.com/20/02/2007
MultiSpec$0http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~biehl/MultiSpec/description.html30/04/2008
TNTLite$0http://www.microimages.com/tntlite/limits.htm30/04/2008
GrassPro$50http://www.openosx.com/grass/grass.html30/04/2008
Statsplus:mac$208http://www.analystsoft.com/en/products/statplusmac/12/04/2008
EnSight$0-$10000http://www.ceisoftware.com//19/07/2011
SARchitect$??http://www.strandls.com/Sarchitect11/12/2009
Knime$0http://www.knime.org//1/10/2010
KnowledgeMiner$300http://www.knowledgeminer.com/aboutkm.htm/20/09/2009
KnowledgeMiner (yX) for Excel$1500http://www.knowledgeminer.com/aboutyx.htm/16/11/2010
Vortex??http://www.dotmatics.com/products_vortex.jsp11/12/2009
xlstat??http://www.xlstat.com/16/06/2010
friedEgg Touch$14.99http://www.friedegg.com/touch/touch.html13/01/2011
Tulip 3.4.1$0http://tulip.labri.fr/TulipDrupal/?q=node/78114/01/2011
IBM SPSS$6000-$37000http://www.spss.com/14/01/2011
SPICE$0http://exon.niaid.nih.gov/spice/14/01/2011
DAQ Plot$14.99-$345http://www.vvidget.org/apps/mac/daqplot/index.html24/11/2011
kSpectra$189http://www.spectraworks.com/web/welcome.html28/01/2011
Cytoscape$0http://www.cytoscape.org/28/01/2011
Gephi$0http://gephi.org/28/01/2011
RapidMiner$0 paid supporthttp://rapid-i.com/27/05/2011
SciDAVis$0http://scidavis.sourceforge.net/27/05/2011
LabPlot$0http://scidavis.sourceforge.net/27/05/2011
mjoGraph$0http://www.ochiailab.dnj.ynu.ac.jp/mjograph/29/08/2011
fityk$0http://fityk.nieto.pl/27/05/2011
mathStatica$285http://www.mathstatica.com/10/11/2011
InfiniteGraph$0- >$5000http://www.infinitegraph.com/14/11/2011
Solo$695- $2195http://www.eigenvector.com/software/solo.htm17/12/2011
Graph$0http://www.vvidget.org/graph/index.html17/01/2012
MagicPlot$149http://magicplot.com/features.php03/03/2012
JTreeView$0http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtreeview/05/03/2012
CheS-Mapper$0http://macinchem.org/reviews/ChesMapper/chesmapper_review.php10/05/2012

Whilst the tools above provide a wealth of alternatives for exploring and analysing data one other request often comes up, if you have a hard copy of a graph how do you get the data into one of the above packages. I know of two tools that help in this task.

GraphClick is a graph digitizer software which allows to automatically retrieve the original (x,y)-data from the image of a scanned graph or from a QuickTime movie. It is a native Mac OS X application and an Apple design award winner.


DataThief III is a Java application to extract (reverse engineer) data points from a graph. Typically, you scan a graph from a publication, load it into DataThief, and save the resulting coordinates, so you can use them in calculations or graphs that include your own data.


On the other hand if you just want to create structured data table (fields) and fill them with random proper content (records) with a single click then DataCreator is what you might want to look at, I've written a review DataCreator.

Data Extractor allows to extract data from files and collect them ready to be exported for later use Data is collected in records with custom specified fields inside an internal table. Data can be exported at any time. Data extractor can parse thousands and thousands of file in few seconds and collect all the data inside these files using simple instructions on how to recognise data, how to extract them and where to put these data inside Data Extractor tables, ready to be exported and transferred to a database.


You might also want to look at Data Wrangler for an online tool for cleaning up data.