Time to first plot has indeed been discussed at length in this forum.
But generally, some reasons, why I think Matlab has still a strong presence in technical computing, has been posted some time ago in a similar thread about the Designated Target Audience of Julia.
https://discourse.julialang.org/t/designated-target-audience-of-julia-1-0/11804
Is Julia a direct competitor to Matlab and should Matlab be scared? In some areas, yes.
However, I see python/scipy/matplotlib and octave as more direct competitors to the common use case of base Matlab. And there the foss equivalents are a viable alternative.
What is often omitted in discussions, important functionality is fully or partly missing in all the contenders:
- For industry use Simulink is really important (automotive, telecom and aviation). There is simply no equivalent in Python, Julia, R or Octave. Similar for toolboxes targeting real-time systems or formal code verification.
- Tight integration with leading commercial software packages (e.g. LabView, Comsol etc)
- Comprehensive and consistent documentation with example code for all functions
- A beginner friendly, just working out-of-the-box, tightly integrated environment(ide/debugger/profiler)