Stata is a full-featured statistical programming language for Windows, Macintosh, Unix and Linux. It can be considered a “stat package,” like SAS, SPSS, RATS, or eViews. The number of variables is limited to 2,047 in standard Stata/IC, but can be much larger in Stata/SE or Stata/MP. The number of observations is limited only by memory.
Stata has traditionally been a command-line-driven package that operates in a graphical (windowed) environment. Stata version 11 (released July 2009) contains a graphical user interface (GUI) for command entry. Stata may also be used in a command-line environment on a shared system (e.g., Unix) if you do not have a graphical interface to that system.