Well, there's R.
But basically, yes that's the long and short of it.
Also, MatLab was the go-to before Python took over the scene. So it definetely has competitors.
Python's strength is that it is the "jack of all trades" language. Its not the best at anything but its pretty good at everything.
Matlab is closed source. I haven’t touched it since I had a uni license.
Well, there's R.
But basically, yes that's the long and short of it.