humind
The MSNI humanitarian needs framework as code, rewritten and re-broken every year
Comparison · Infra & APIs
afcharts vs bcdata
A side-by-side editorial comparison of afcharts and bcdata — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
afcharts vs bcdata: at a glance
What is afcharts?
UK government chart styling in ggplot2, chasing ggplot2 v4 and stretching its palette to five.
afcharts supplies the UK Analysis Function's chart styling for ggplot2, as a theme, colour and fill scales, and a use_afcharts() call that applies the styling globally. Version 0.5.1 extends the sequential palette to five shades so it can carry quintile data such as deprivation bands, renames the na_colour argument to na.value, and adds a reset argument to switch the styling back off. The package began as a first release derived from sgplot and has had three releases in roughly two years.
What is bcdata?
The R gateway to B.C.'s data catalogue, mostly busy keeping pace with the servers behind it.
bcdata searches the British Columbia Data Catalogue and pulls records from it, including spatial layers retrieved through WMS and WFS with dplyr-style filtering translated into CQL queries sent to the server. The recent releases are small and corrective: 0.5.3 fixes malformed CQL generated by geometry predicates such as INTERSECTS, which the server had been rejecting outright, and 0.5.2 drops a leaflet extension dependency in favour of a base leaflet call. Cadence is a few releases a year.
afcharts vs bcdata: editorial side-by-side
afcharts
0.0INFRA · APIS
UK government chart styling in ggplot2, chasing ggplot2 v4 and stretching its palette to five.
◆ Current state
afcharts supplies the UK Analysis Function's chart styling for ggplot2, as a theme, colour and fill scales, and a use_afcharts() call that applies the styling globally. Version 0.5.1 extends the sequential palette to five shades so it can carry quintile data such as deprivation bands, renames the na_colour argument to na.value, and adds a reset argument to switch the styling back off. The package began as a first release derived from sgplot and has had three releases in roughly two years.
◆ Where it's heading
The work splits between palette design and keeping the styling composable. On the design side the sequential palette growing to five shades is driven by a specific reporting need rather than aesthetics, since quintiles are a standard unit in UK official statistics. On the mechanical side, the na.value rename was forced by ggplot2 v4.0.1, theme_af() now respects options set by an earlier use_afcharts() call, and a reset argument acknowledges that global styling needs an off switch. These are the problems a styling package hits once people use it inside larger documents.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued adjustment to ggplot2 v4, since the na.value rename is unlikely to be the only argument affected, and further palette work driven by the reporting formats government analysts actually publish. As a sibling to aftables in the same Analysis Function family, it is likely to keep tracking that guidance rather than setting its own direction.
bcdata
0.0INFRA · APIS
The R gateway to B.C.'s data catalogue, mostly busy keeping pace with the servers behind it.
◆ Current state
bcdata searches the British Columbia Data Catalogue and pulls records from it, including spatial layers retrieved through WMS and WFS with dplyr-style filtering translated into CQL queries sent to the server. The recent releases are small and corrective: 0.5.3 fixes malformed CQL generated by geometry predicates such as INTERSECTS, which the server had been rejecting outright, and 0.5.2 drops a leaflet extension dependency in favour of a base leaflet call. Cadence is a few releases a year.
◆ Where it's heading
Almost everything in this window is a response to something changing on the other side of the connection: a CKAN 2.9 upgrade that stopped search and listing functions returning complete results, WMS and WFS capability requests that cannot be relied on, dbplyr tightening the rules for local evaluation, and general catalogue-side churn. The package's own interface has been stable since the 0.4.0 change that required local() around locally-evaluated filter calls, and the work since has gone into keeping that stable interface working rather than extending it.
◆ Prediction
Expect the same pattern: targeted fixes as the catalogue and its CKAN, WMS and WFS layers change, with occasional dependency pruning of the kind 0.5.2 did. Nothing in these entries points toward a 0.6 or a change in what the package covers.
Alternatives to afcharts and bcdata
Other Infra & APIs products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either afcharts or bcdata.
inlabru
A Bayesian spatial modelling package rebuilding its foundations one breaking release at a time
coga
A gamma-convolution density package that reached completion in 2018 and has coasted since.
smam
Animal-movement models in R, where new stochastic processes arrive years apart.
baseq
A basic DNA and RNA sequence toolkit that went quiet for three years, then jumped to 2.0.
pakret
Package citation for R documents, quietly growing to meet Quarto.
See all afcharts alternatives → · See all bcdata alternatives →
Recent activity from afcharts and bcdata
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agobcdataGeometry predicate filters no longer rejected by the server
- 5mo agoafchartsSequential palette reaches five shades for quintile data
- 6mo agobcdataleaflet.extras dependency dropped for WMS legends
- 1y agobcdataSearch and listing functions return complete results again
- 1y agoafchartsNamespace and argument-passing fixes
- 1y agobcdataHardened against failing WMS and WFS capability requests
- 1y agoafchartsFirst release, derived from sgplot
- 3y agobcdataJSON resources readable; organization listing helpers added
- 3y agobcdatafilter() now requires local() for locally-evaluated calls
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between afcharts and bcdata?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. afcharts and bcdata are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is afcharts better than bcdata?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. afcharts and bcdata are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to afcharts?
Top afcharts alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "afcharts alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/afcharts for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to bcdata?
Top bcdata alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "bcdata alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/bcdata for the full list with editorial commentary on each.