LabJack vs Arduino vs PLC: Which One for Measurement and Control?
Three popular ways to measure and control the physical world — built for three different jobs. Here's how to tell which one fits yours before you commit.
When an engineer needs to read sensors and drive outputs, the same three candidates come up: a LabJack DAQ, an Arduino, and a PLC. They overlap enough to be confusing and differ enough that the wrong pick costs you weeks. The trick is to stop comparing them feature-by-feature and instead ask what each was designed to do.
The one-line difference
- Arduino is designed to run standalone — a cheap microcontroller you program once and deploy.
- LabJack is designed to talk to a computer — a measurement-grade DAQ that turns your PC into an instrument.
- PLC is designed to run industrial sequences reliably — rugged, deterministic control built for the factory floor.
Almost every "which should I use" question resolves once you know which of those three sentences describes your project.
Arduino: cheap, standalone, hands-on
Arduino's strengths are low cost, a massive library of sensor-specific shields and example code, and the ability to run on its own without a host computer. For battery-powered gadgets, embedded products and hobby builds, it's hard to beat.
The trade-offs show up when you need measurement quality. Arduino's onboard analog input is fairly primitive (typically 10-bit, single-ended, no real anti-alias or gain), so for low-level or precise signals you end up adding external ADCs and conditioning — and writing the firmware to drive them. You're now doing electronics and embedded development. Great if that's the point; a detour if you just need clean data.
LabJack: measurement quality, driven from a PC
A LabJack DAQ (the T4 and T7/T7-Pro) is built around the analog front-end. The T7 gives you 14 analog inputs, a programmable gain amplifier (×1–×1000), and streaming up to ~100 kS/s; the T7-Pro adds a 24-bit ADC, WiFi and onboard Lua scripting. It connects over USB, Ethernet or WiFi and works from Python, C#, LabVIEW and MATLAB via mature libraries — and it speaks Modbus TCP, so it can also feed SCADA/HMI software directly.
LabJack's own summary puts it well: for anything beyond the simplest task, a device meant to work with a computer is far easier to develop and troubleshoot — and its analog performance is well ahead of a typical PLC. The limit: it generally wants a host (the T7-Pro can run autonomously with onboard scripting), and it doesn't carry Arduino's huge catalogue of plug-in sensor shields. See the LabJack T-series DAQ for the lineup, and our piece on USB DAQ on a modern test bench for the bench context.
PLC: rugged, deterministic industrial control
A PLC is the right tool when uptime and determinism matter more than measurement finesse: controlling a machine, sequencing a process, surviving years in a hot cabinet with electrical noise everywhere. PLCs are programmed in ladder logic (or IEC languages) with vendor tools, and they're built to keep running untouched.
The trade-offs: analog measurement is usually moderate (better than Arduino, behind LabJack), the hardware and software ecosystem can be costlier and more closed, and rapid, code-driven data analysis on a PC is less natural than with a DAQ.
Side-by-side
| LabJack | Arduino | PLC | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Designed to | Talk to a computer | Run standalone | Run industrial sequences |
| Analog quality | High (16/24-bit, PGA, differential) | Primitive (≈10-bit) | Moderate |
| Max sample rate | ~100 kS/s (T7) | Low/manual | Scan-rate limited |
| Dev effort | Low with a PC, mature libs | More firmware + electronics | Ladder logic, vendor tools |
| Ruggedness | Lab/industrial | Bare board | Highest (factory-grade) |
| Runs without PC | T7-Pro can (Lua) | Yes | Yes |
| Cost | Mid | Low | Mid–high |
| Best for | Precise measurement + control from a PC | Cheap embedded/standalone gadgets | Reliable machine/process control |
How to choose — three questions
- Does it need to run unattended forever in a harsh environment? → Lean PLC.
- Is it a low-cost, standalone, embedded product? → Lean Arduino.
- Do you need quality measurement and fast development with a computer in the loop? → Lean LabJack.
If you find yourself answering "I need good data and a computer's analysis power, but it's not a factory machine," that's the clearest LabJack signal there is. A budget-friendly starting point is the LabJack T4; step up to the T7/T7-Pro for higher resolution, thermocouples, more channels and WiFi.
Total cost of ownership, not just sticker price
A LabJack costs more up front than a bare Arduino, and that comparison is where a lot of decisions go wrong. Hardware price is only one column. The bigger cost on most projects is engineering time: the hours spent designing conditioning circuits, writing and debugging firmware, and chasing noise on a primitive analog input. As LabJack frames it, Arduino has low hardware cost but high labour cost; the right way to compare is total time-to-result.
- Arduino: cheap board, but budget for shields/conditioning, firmware development, and debugging. Cheapest when the build is simple, the volume is high, or learning the embedded stack is itself a goal.
- LabJack: higher device cost, but mature drivers, quality analog out of the box, and you develop in a language you already use on a PC you already have. Cheapest when getting trustworthy data quickly is what matters.
- PLC: mid-to-high hardware and software cost, but unmatched reliability. Cheapest over a 10-year machine life where downtime is the real expense.
The lowest sticker price and the lowest total cost are frequently different products.
They're not mutually exclusive
Real systems mix them. A PLC can run the machine while a LabJack captures detailed measurement data for analysis. An Arduino can handle a small standalone subsystem feeding a larger PC-based rig. And where you want plug-in modular sensing and control alongside a DAQ, a Phidgets VINT system slots in nicely. The goal isn't brand loyalty — it's matching each tool to the job it was built for.
Bottom line
- Measurement quality + computer in the loop → LabJack.
- Cheap, standalone, embedded → Arduino.
- Rugged, deterministic machine control → PLC.
Decide by the sentence that describes your project, not by the longest spec list.
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