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Ocaml was always the more pragmatic language and for a long time the implementation was significantly faster than anything SML offered. MLton came along very late in the game and offers excellent performance, but doesn't support separate compilation.

Edit: A more lengthy comparison: http://adam.chlipala.net/mlcomp/

Thanks for the perspective!

For me (the author), it's because SML as it was taught to me is a closed language. It can never and will never change. Perfect for education, perhaps not so useful as a career choice.

OCaml has been moving forward; GADTs were added recently, multicore support is coming, and who knows what else is on the horizon.

what saddens me is that aliceml [https://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/alice/] seems to have died. i've kept it vaguely in the back of my mind as "this looks like a very pleasant language, and as soon as i have a problem in its sweet spot i'll give it a good look", but the last time i went to look at it i realised the last mailing list post was in 2012, and the last home page update in 2007.