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Comparison · Analytics

affiner vs ggcorrplot

A side-by-side editorial comparison of affiner and ggcorrplot — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

affiner vs ggcorrplot: at a glance

Featureaffinerggcorrplot
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.02.5
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesr-package, computational-geometry, grid-graphics, affine-transformscorrelation, r, ggplot2, visualization
Last editorial update47m ago3h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is affiner?

affiner is quietly turning a grid transformation helper into a small computational geometry library.

An R package that began as a wrapper around grid's affine transformation primitives, with an angle vector class supporting degrees, radians, half-turns, turns and gradians so users need not convert by hand. Four releases in roughly eighteen months. The recent two have expanded well past that starting point into geometric objects and the predicates that operate on them.

Read the full affiner trajectory →

What is ggcorrplot?

ggcorrplot came back after four years and found its significance markers had been lying

ggcorrplot draws correlation matrices in ggplot2 with optional significance marking and hierarchical reordering. It sat untouched from late 2022 until mid-2026, then shipped 0.2.0 and 0.3.0 sixteen days apart. Between them they added the display options users had been requesting since 2016 and repaired a set of bugs where hc.order = TRUE silently changed which cells were marked significant.

Read the full ggcorrplot trajectory →

affiner vs ggcorrplot: editorial side-by-side

A
affiner
ANALYTICS
0.0

affiner is quietly turning a grid transformation helper into a small computational geometry library.

◆ Current state

An R package that began as a wrapper around grid's affine transformation primitives, with an angle vector class supporting degrees, radians, half-turns, turns and gradians so users need not convert by hand. Four releases in roughly eighteen months. The recent two have expanded well past that starting point into geometric objects and the predicates that operate on them.

◆ Where it's heading

The direction is clear from the order things arrived. Version 0.2.1 added the predicate layer first — has_intersection(), intersection(), is_equivalent() and is_parallel() as S3 generics working across angle vectors, points, lines and planes. Version 0.3.1 then supplied the objects those generics need, with Ellipse2D, Polygon2D and Segment2D R6 classes plus constructors for rectangles, regular n-gons and isotoxal star polygons, and dot products at one, two and three dimensions. Building the operations before the shapes is unusual ordering but it means each new object type arrives already composable with everything else.

◆ Prediction

Expect more 2D and 3D object types filling out the same generic interface, and the geometry side to keep outgrowing the grid-transformation wrapper the package was named for.

G
ggcorrplot
ANALYTICS
2.5

ggcorrplot came back after four years and found its significance markers had been lying

◆ Current state

ggcorrplot draws correlation matrices in ggplot2 with optional significance marking and hierarchical reordering. It sat untouched from late 2022 until mid-2026, then shipped 0.2.0 and 0.3.0 sixteen days apart. Between them they added the display options users had been requesting since 2016 and repaired a set of bugs where hc.order = TRUE silently changed which cells were marked significant.

◆ Where it's heading

Both releases chase the same target: parity with the older corrplot package inside a ggplot2 object. Significance stars appended to coefficient labels, circle scaling, decimal control, then boxed cells and glyphs sized by absolute correlation — these are corrplot's visual vocabulary reimplemented where they can be composed with other ggplot2 layers. The bug fixes point the other way, at foundations: p-values matched to cells by name rather than row position, clustering computed on the unrounded matrix, tl.col actually applied.

◆ Prediction

With the corrplot look largely reproduced and the correctness backlog cleared, the remaining gap is the mixed upper/lower display corrplot supports; that is the natural next argument if the current release pace holds.

Alternatives to affiner and ggcorrplot

Other Analytics 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 affiner or ggcorrplot.

See all affiner alternatives → · See all ggcorrplot alternatives →

Recent activity from affiner and ggcorrplot

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 21d agoggcorrplotggcorrplot 0.3.0 adds boxed cells and correlation-sized squares
  2. 1mo agoggcorrplotggcorrplot 0.2.0 fixes significance markers broken by hc.order
  3. 3mo agoaffinerEllipse, polygon and segment objects, with star and n-gon constructors
  4. 6mo agoaffinerIntersection, equivalence and parallelism generics across geometric types
  5. 1y agoaffinerIsocube border fill forced transparent
  6. 1y agoaffinerInitial release: affine grob wrappers and multi-unit angle vectors
  7. 3y agoggcorrplotggcorrplot 0.1.4
  8. 6y agoggcorrplotggcorrplot 0.1.3
  9. 7y agoggcorrplotggcorrplot 0.1.2
  10. 10y agoggcorrplotggcorrplot's first release: correlograms in ggplot2

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between affiner and ggcorrplot?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ggcorrplot is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.

Is affiner better than ggcorrplot?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggcorrplot is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to affiner?

Top affiner alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "affiner alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/affiner-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to ggcorrplot?

Top ggcorrplot alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggcorrplot alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggcorrplot for the full list with editorial commentary on each.