Somebody (I think Jay Freeman) liked my post. I want to add my current state to that many years old discussion.

Meanwhile I dropped Programming Lab and switched to Wolfram|One (V13.0.1, 64bit, $263/year, Windows 10/11). This is a true desktop version with local files (which I synchronize automatically with my Microsoft OneDrive cloud). It solves almost all my former concerns, let aside debugging, which is still unusable (Debugger within Evaluation menu).

What I like the most with Wolfram is symbolic computation and notebooks. The latter are really great for doing programming and documentation at the same place.

That's what I'm thinking. Can somebody answer this?

I agree that the best user experience comes from using Mathematica on the desktop. Any graphics rendering, let alone Dynamic content, using the cloud severely compromises performance.

Using Mathematica (purchase the license rather than SaaS) is, as far as I can tell, less expensive in the long run as well.

The only case where I can see cloud computing as an advantage is in cases where you can make use of a kernel in the cloud that has access to the proper GPU and enough cores to make the computation significantly faster than on the desktop. The computations would have to be sufficiently complex and time-consuming that the communication latency would be acceptable. There has been talk about offering this as a service at some of the WTCs I have attended, but there has been nothing official. It's like any other add-on device or peripheral. For exmple,is it cheaper to pay to have someone else 3D-print an object rather than buying a 3-D printer? I can (or will be able to soon be able to) buy a Thunderbolt cage for putting any GPU card I wish into, for roughly $1000-1500 USD. The extra costs for doing the computations in the cloud would have to be competitive.

In this case, of course, the cloud computing is really just a (rented) computer peripheral. It is not at all like trying to run a Mathematica notebook in the cloud from a Web browser. It's nice to be able to do this occasionally, but I can't think of any realistic case where I would want to do more than I can get Wolfram|Alpha to do where I would not have my laptop with me.

It seems to me that all the cloud initiatives are really just gateway drugs to get users to purchase Mathematica on their desktops. This is not a bad thing, necessarily. Let a K-12 student try the free or low cost cloud version to see if there is any interest, but then get a proper version. It's just like a student learning a musical instrument. Start out on a $400 flute (for example), and then go for the $10,000+ flute if there is sufficient interest. The price bump for full desktop Mathematica is much smaller, of course.

Wolfram|One seems to be a product without a purpose, unless there is a marketing need to rebrand Mathematica so it doesn't seem so 'mathy'. You can have Mathematica with the identical subscription model as Wolfram|One, plus you can purchase a Mathematica license, which you cannot do with Wolfram|One.

In any case, if anyone is going to invest the time to learn Wolfram Language, the best course of action would be to get a desktop version of Mathematica. That way, there are no compromises at all regarding performance and flexibility.

Until now I was not aware of the important role of $UserBaseDirectory/Applications and did not use it. I will try that and see if my Programming Lab can work with local files there.

It's a pity (or a desaster): The Programming Lab desktop cannot save anything to any local Folder. Probably I would have to adapt your style to Wolfram cloud folders.

Werner, in my opinion most users of Mathematica can do everything they need with desktop Mathematica and Workbench used solely for adding documentation pages.

Yes, there may be some projects that employ dozens of programmers with huge budgets and critical missions. Those kinds of projects are beyond my ken. They probably require a lot of 'computer science' and computer systems work, large scale debugging and validation - not to speak of good lawyers and business managers! But generally the more independent elements you have to integrate the more the concerns veer away from the core content to ancillary issues.

I believe the target audience tor Mathematica was originally scientists, engineers, mathematicians and anyone whose work contains substantial mathematics, probably mostly academics, working either singly or in small groups, and trying to build up a core of knowledge and capability in a specific area. And also wanting to communicate their work to other people in the field.

If you are such a person you might be interested in my essay on using Mathematica in that manner: A Mathematica Style.

I like to think of Mathematica not as a super graphical calculator or programming language (although it is partly those things) but as a magic piece of paper on which I am writing my material. Magic because it has memory, the ability to calculate, and the ability to transmit active routines to readers. It beats static printed papers by orders of magnitude.

As for debugging, I have always found it easy just by looking at output or inserting a few Print statements. I know this sounds primitive but whenever I've tried program supplied debugging I've found it more work than benefit. And I've developed a number of fairly large Mathematica applications, some with other persons.

Thank you for the quick response. As I had written, I have bought Mathematica and so far have gone by Premier Service (industrial license). I definitely see benefits in using cloud access vs. Player Pro that has to be installed for every single user if I remember correctly.

What confuses me is, that you had written, that with PS+ you do not have access to Programming Lab or to Development Platform. Is there a difference in deployment options (e.g. UDS) using Mathematica Online (PS+) or can certain cloud features not be used like the Data Drop?

Great answer. As far as I figured by now, Mathematica is mostly sold, while Wolfram|One is rented (e.g. SaaS). As you wrote, this renders Wolfram|One -- which I see as an entry-level product -- worthless to me, being an avid user of Mma for some years now.

Where I do have difficulties is to choose between Premier Service Plus (PS+) and the Wolfram Development Platform (WPC orginially) with its flexible pricing model. Where exactly is the difference here that would tilt the scale to one side or the other? (e.g. with PS+ there are 25 Free Viewers)

"There is some debugging functionality built-in to Mathematica, but nothing like Xcode, for example."

What do you mean? I know nothing but Assert and Echo.

"However, Mathematica is not your basic programming language, so to think of it as an IDE may get you off into a black hole eventually. It took me a while to realize this, but once I realized what Wolfram Language really was, I do a lot better."

Hmmh? Why should Mathematica not be my basic programming language? And why should those different Wolfram-products not be IDEs?

Off course, if I would still work in my former professional environment I would need some more things than my seven points above: Teamwork, Connection to configuration management tools and testing tools for example. Maybe that's possible with the Wolfram Workbench and Eclipse.

What do you mean by "hobbyist" license? Is this that Wolfram Home or the like? Just another dubious product with unknown features..

Do you think, it would cover my 7 points from above (maybe without point 7: debugger)? And I could live without my point 6: Replication local <-> (Wolfram-) cloud, since my Microsoft OneDrive is able to do that without any problems.

BTW: For some tens of years I have never seen an IDE without a debugger. The Wolfram-packages are the first to miss that standard feature. (Let aside that Eclipse plug-in. I know Eclipse and worked a lot with it). When I bought WPL I did not even think on the possibility that it does not have a debugger. It's really funny, or sad. Now I have to scatter my code with nonsense conditional Echo- and Print-statements. Just like 40 years ago at Algol or Fortran times.

Just another thing is WolframAlpha. Of course this is not a programming environment but a "natural language knowledge engine", which it really is.

But I like to try out small WL-pieces within WA from my smartphone. WA knows some WL-functions or similar constructs (e.g. "Solve[...]" and "solve ..."), but not all of the WL-functions or only with restricted syntax. Since all WA-processing is done within Wolfram servers, I cannot understand that. And there is no reference documentation for WA. Hence each and every time you try something, its an endless process of trial and error.

Saying "Mathematica can be purchased outright" is perhaps overstating the situation: one is only buying a license, which without buying any further services, puts no time limit on using that particular version.

It would be really useful to have a comparison page on the Wolfram site that lists Wolfram|One and Mathematica, the same way that I can compare a macBook Pro and an iMac on the Apple website.

Other than the fact that Wolfram|One is subscription only, I can see no difference in the products.

I notice that Stephen Wolfram seems to use Wolfram Desktop a lot in his presentations when he is talking about Mathematica, so as far as desktop functionality is concerned, there cannot be any difference.

When Wolfram|One was first released, I thought that it was a simple rebranding of Mathematica. After all, Mathematica has expanded well beyond its original purpose -- "A system for Doing Mathematics by Computer", as the subtitle of the original Mathematica book states. Whether or not it would make marketing sense to unify the products under the new name is problematic. As a long-time user since version 1, I would have no problem with the renaming, but almost 30 years of mostly free publicity is hard to give up.

What I find odd is that various Wolfram Research offerings do not play well together. For example, my premier service plus plan for Mathematica does not give me access to the Wolfram Programming Lab or the Wolfram Development platform, even though I already have all the functionality. (Some of the UI features of the Programming lab are useful when trying to teach newbies, for example.)

I prefer to 'own' the software, rather than renting it, and the latter seems to be the only option for Wolfram|One. For a professional user, one is paying a yearly fee of about half the outright purchase price for Mathematica, so if one is using the program more than two or three years, it is less expensive to buy Mathematica and purchase Premier Service every year than to continue with an annual fee. I see that there is an annual subscription for Mathematica, which is almost exactly the same price as the subscription for Wolfram|One.

I did a quick check of the pricing for the home use/personal use, and the benefits are exactly the same. The subscription price is exactly the same as well. So, you can pay a bit more to buy Mathematica initially, and have a lower annual cost for each subsequent year, or rent the software. I hadn't looked at this pricing before because I have an Industry license, and there are more options with this.

So, the real question remains: what is special about Wolfram|One, compared to Mathematica? If you use the subscription model for Mathematica, I can see no difference between the two. The advantage of Mathematica for me is that the yearly cost of ownership is substantially less with the outright purchase of Mathematica plus Premier Service Plus, and would be for a new user as well.

I did talk about this matter with my account manager when Wolfram|One was released, and he could not find any difference in the products, other than the licensing model. However, he was probably looking only at the Industry license (which I have), and not at the other user categories.

To conclude, as far as I can tell, the only difference between Wolfram|One and Mathematica, other than the name, is the fact that Wolfram|One is available only as an annual subscription, while Mathematica can also be purchased outright. With the current pricing schemes, the only relevant consequence of this is that the cost of 'ownership' is significantly less for Mathematica (purchase plus Premier Service Plus) if the program is kept up-to-date for more than two years. (This break-even point may vary a bit by user-type, but it is close enough.)

The one remaining nagging detail that the marketing pages do not cover is the explicit statement that all the features and functionality of the Wolfram Language are equally supported. This is of concern because other Wolfram Research products: Data Science Platform, Finance Platform, and System Modeler differentiate themselves by offering additional functionality not provided with Mathematica, and presumedly, Wolfram|One. So, if there really is extra functionality in Wolfram|One that is not made explicit on the marketing pages, it would be useful to know that.

I think that this is the thrust of this thread.

Yes, I know what "etc" is an abbreviation for!

Just to get at long last what will be -- I hope! -- a definitive, clear, and complete answer....

The only differences between Mathematica with Premier Plus Service, on the one hand, and Wolfram|One, on the other hand are with respect to licensing terms and limits (commercial vs. non-commercial use, number of kernels, evaluation time and space, storage, credits, etc.)?

If that's so, why on earth can't anybody simply say that?? Why make things so obscure and unclear??

Note that you have a genuine marketing problem if WRI cannot say simply, clearly, and unambiguously what differentiates its cloud-related products! Right not it does not.

What do you mean by "base capabilities"? Does that mean the same functionality except with respect to commercial vs. non-commercial usage, cloud storage, cloud credits ( and what's that "etc")?

This is still as clear as mud!

What, exactly, is the difference between:

1. Mathematica with Premier Service Plus (which gives access to Mathematica Online), on the one hand; and
2. Wolfram|One, on the other hand?????

I'm not interested in the history, just what exactly, are the differences?

Hi Murray

Mathematica is our legacy desktop product, best used in combination with Mathematica Online. Premier Service Plus can be added to Mathematica and provides support + home-use + Mathematica Online. This would easily enable deployments, sharing, and publishing from desktop to cloud.

Wolfram|One is our newest product, and is intended to provide an entry point to the Wolfram Language, particularly for commercial users. It is a hybrid product, in that it offers a desktop and cloud interface under one license. Feature wise, Mathematica and Wolfram|One are very similar right now. We are planning for Wolfram|One to become our base product for non-Mathematica audiences, and build upon it for specific use cases. (Data Science, Publishing, etc.)

The Wolfram Cloud is not a product, you cannot purchase it. Wolfram Cloud is the infrastructure that enables all of our Cloud products and services. Data Drop is a service that utilizes the Wolfram Cloud for data accumulation. It is not a product, it is a service that can be used in combination with any Cloud connected product.

Finally, the Wolfram Development Platform was our first product utilizing the Wolfram Cloud. It is primarily a cloud product, accessed via the web. The licensing (and free entry points) is designed for software/app development and experimentation.

I hope this was helpful. Our Sales team could talk through your individual goals and needs to ensure you find the right path. Please email sales@wolfram.com or contact them through this form - http://www.wolfram.com/company/contact/sales/

Thank you for your interest! Clayton Voyles Wolfram Research