I use Matplotlib for my publications written in latex. Matplotlib can also render via a latex backend, which gives you then matching fonts and symbols in the text and figure by using something as simple as:

rc('text', usetex=True) matplotlib.rcParams['text.latex.preamble'] = ['\\usepackage{siunitx}']

Here is an example from my own publication, with 100% Matplotlib and latex:

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/104/9/10.10...

A clear advantage using Matplotlib is reusability as opposed to the time needed to set the plotting parameters right for every single figure over and over. I would really recommend this kind of workflow to anyone in academic publishing.