First: I'm not 100% sure if this is the place to be asking this, but I figured this would seem out-of-place in stack overflow.
Second, some background: I recently asked a question here about integrating some expression. I had tried both Maxima and Sympy (the only two Computer Algebra Systems I use) and they both failed.
Then one of the comments pointed out that Wolfram Alpha solved it! Which made me feel a bit stupid because basically I had overlooked the obvious easiest approach, which was to "google it" (almost). This is because in my understanding CASs should be able to do more than Wolfram Alpha, which I thought was aimed to be something more accessible to everybody rather than a really complete and specialized system.
Furthermore, in some other times both Maxima and Sympy have also let me down, but I won't get into that for now.
Obviously CASs can do things Wolfram Alpha can't. Like when we need many lines and to actually do algebra, etc. WA is more for one-liners.
But, if we don't consider problems that involve more than one line of code, is there a still a reason, in this day and age, to seek CASs instead of just using tools off the internet? (Considering that being free is almost a must-have.)
I ask this also because the problem might be that I'm also just not using the right CAS.
PS.: This is related to this old question from 2010. I figure things have changed a lot from then to now.
