--- title: IDL Reviews meta_title: 'IDL Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how IDL works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.2 review_count: 6 scale: '5' date_modified: '2025-10-30' parent_category: name: Integrated Development Environments (IDE) url: https://www.g2.com/categories/integrated-development-environments-ide --- # IDL Reviews **Vendor:** NV5 Global **Category:** [Other Integrated Development Environments (IDE)](https://www.g2.com/categories/other-integrated-development-environments-ide) **Average Rating:** 4.2/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 6 ## About IDL A key foundation of scientific discovery is complex numerical data. If making discoveries is a fundamental part of your work, you need a tool to help you understand what your data means, and how to apply that knowledge effectively; a tool to help you discover what’s in your data. Using a powerful, modern programming language like IDL lets you transform numbers into dynamic visual representations, so you can interpret your data, expedite discoveries and deliver powerful applications to market. ## IDL Reviews ### 1. IDL applications for NOAA aerosol remote sensing data analysis **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 18, 2019 **What do you like best about IDL?** Me and my team use IDL in various ways. From algorithm development to data analysis of satellite products. We primarily use IDL to display satellite products and conduct analysis such as monthly means, annual means, matchups with other correlative observations, time series analysis, and web-based dissemination of our satellite products at NOAA. **What do you dislike about IDL?** It is slow and sometimes unforgiving. IDL guides are of not much use. We rely on other published documents online (Coyote) for help with certain aspects of code development. **What problems is IDL solving and how is that benefiting you?** Benefits are that IDL is one of the best software tool out there to display satellite data using different map projections ### 2. IDL for scientific programming. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dushyant K. | MRI (Medical Resonance Imaging) Physicist, Research, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 04, 2019 **What do you like best about IDL?** IDL has very active user group, sharing many specialized library. This makes prototyping in IDL fast and less prone to bugs. **What do you dislike about IDL?** Array functionality is less powerful, also slower for larger array. **What problems is IDL solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have been using it to process X-ray scattering, optical diffraction data and also diffractive reconstruction. Given a large user group sharing their codes optimized for particular task, the prototyping is very fast. ### 3. User friendly and effcient **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Defense & Space | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 03, 2019 **What do you like best about IDL?** The simplicity in writing code and the vast variety of functions that one can use. **What do you dislike about IDL?** Many times there is no sufficient explanation for the errors that might occur. Running time is OK, but could be a little better for large numerical analysis. **What problems is IDL solving and how is that benefiting you?** I analyze X-ray observations of astrophysical objects (image processing). IDL is easy to handle and ### 4. 5-year work experience with IDL **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 03, 2019 **What do you like best about IDL?** IDL has fairly versatile properties and it can be a very efficient tool. **What do you dislike about IDL?** Documentation could be better and the IDL syntax is perhaps not as readable as in Python for example. **What problems is IDL solving and how is that benefiting you?** I used to do all my data analysis tasks using IDL. This included image processing and data visualisation. ### 5. Coding made fun and easy **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 02, 2018 **What do you like best about IDL?** Easy to install and start programming. Debugging is very simple and do not have syntax problems!! **What do you dislike about IDL?** Varying versions, recently the reverse indexing. Huge cost for license I completely dislike **Recommendations to others considering IDL:** Great software for scientific analysis and imaging **What problems is IDL solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have been using IDL for scientific research to simulate charge transport in X-ray detectors being used in various space missions. I also use IDL to perform research on the solar flares using data from multiple solar observatories. ### 6. Great product! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Federico G. | Postdoctoral Researcher, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2019 **What do you like best about IDL?** Easy interface for plotting and analyzing data. Great compatibility with NC files. Similar to Python. **What do you dislike about IDL?** Very expensive for individuals to buy a license. No major improvements in recent versions. **Recommendations to others considering IDL:** Be patient in learning it. **What problems is IDL solving and how is that benefiting you?** Use it to analyze modeling and satellite data and to visualize it. - [View IDL pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/idl/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-06-28+06%3A49%3A07+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=decd967d-e69e-438a-b7fe-a1051c479fb8&secure%5Btoken%5D=d5e78f009feece8af86274345c97c54705ede9274f29879fc6a7983af7a79e43&format=llm_user) ## Top IDL Alternatives - [WebStorm](https://www.g2.com/products/webstorm/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (495 reviews) - [Coder](https://www.g2.com/products/coder/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (197 reviews) - [Studio 3T](https://www.g2.com/products/studio-3t/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (192 reviews)