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SageMath is technically really a large Python library, with over 1 million lines of actual code in Cython and Python. Most Sage development is motivated by pure mathematics research (combinatorics, number theory, algebraic topology, manifolds, algebraic dynamics, etc.) and also undergrad mathematics education. For numerical computation, Sage has some interesting things, e.g., wrapping GSL using Cython, very good interval arithmetic, etc., but we ended up mainly punting to Numpy/Scipy/etc. because most Sage developers are not doing applied math/engineering.

(DISCLAIMER: I’m the guy that started SageMath.)

Sagemath really competed with Mathematica IMHO, not MATLAB.

sagemath is monolithic, and incorporates many other foss libraries within it. Other commenters here are discussing comparing scilab with Octave, and sagemath includes all of Octave.

I wish — unfortunately, SageMath doesn’t actually include Octave. I tried to include Octave at one point, but it took far too long to build from source and replicated too much functionality already available in Numpy/Scipy to make it worth the work at the time. I did write a (maybe not so great) pexpect interface between Sage and Octave, and there is also a Jupyter kernel that lets you call Octave from Python. Similar remarks apply to SciLab. A big point of Sage after all is getting open source math software to work together rather than compete. We are all on the same team!