• MATLAB is a commercial integrated technical computing environment that combines numeric computation, advanced graphics and visualization, and a high-level programming language. Several freely-available software packages that implement a MATLAB/netCDF interface are available: MEXNC, MexEPS, and the CSIRO MATLAB/netCDF interface. It's also possible to call netCDF Java library methods from MATLAB, so using it provides the advantages of the Java interface.
• IDL (Interactive Data Language) is a commercial scientific computing environment that combines mathematics, advanced data visualization, scientific graphics, and a graphical user interface toolkit to analyze and visualize scientific data. IDL supports data in netCDF format.
• NCL (NCAR Command Language) is a free interpreted language designed specifically for scientific data processing and visualization. In addition to common programming features, NCL also handles manipulation of metadata, configuration of the visualizations, import of data from a variety of data formats (including netCDF, HDF4, HDF4-EOS, GRIB1, GRIB2) via a single function, and an algebra that supports array operations.
• R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. Three R netCDF interfaces are available: the ncdf package, RNetCDF, and ncvar.

2007 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > NetCDF APIs