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Differences Between MATLAB and MATLAB Runtime

MATLAB® Runtime differs from MATLAB in several important ways:

  • In MATLAB Runtime, MATLAB files are encrypted and immutable.

  • MATLAB has a desktop graphical interface. The MATLAB Runtime has all the MATLAB functionality without the graphical interface.

  • The MATLAB Runtime is version-specific. You must run your applications with the version of the MATLAB Runtime associated with the version of MATLAB Compiler SDK™ with which it was created. For example, if you compiled an application using version 6.3 (R2016b) of MATLAB Compiler™, users who do not have MATLAB installed must have version 9.1 of the MATLAB Runtime installed. Use mcrversion to return the version number of the MATLAB Runtime.

  • The MATLAB paths in a MATLAB Runtime instance are fixed and cannot be changed. To change them, you must first customize them within MATLAB.