Whatagraph
Whatagraph keeps fixing what breaks when one account runs a thousand sources.
Comparison · Analytics
Apache Kylin vs distributions3
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Apache Kylin and distributions3 — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Apache Kylin vs distributions3: at a glance
What is Apache Kylin?
Kylin ships once a year with empty release notes and a native engine nobody is being told about.
Apache Kylin's release stream is close to silent. Four of the six most recent tags carry nothing but the Maven release plugin's own commit message, and 5.0.4 in July 2026 arrived ten months after 5.0.3 with no notes at all. The last release that documented anything was 5.0.2 in April 2025, covering internal-table caching, partition-aware file merging and Gluten jar loading order.
What is distributions3?
distributions3 0.3.0 adds sample-based distributions and likelihood derivatives
An R package giving probability distributions a consistent object interface - d/p/q/r functions, moments, and prodist() methods that pull a fitted distribution out of a regression object. Version 0.3.0 is the first substantive release under Achim Zeileis's maintenance, and it widens what a distribution is allowed to be: Empirical() represents a distribution by a random sample rather than by parameters, and numerical fallbacks now fill in cdf(), pdf(), quantile(), random() and the moments for any object that implements only some of them. New score() and hessian() generics compute first and second derivatives of the log-likelihood with respect to the parameters, analytically for a few distributions and numerically for the rest.
Apache Kylin vs distributions3: editorial side-by-side
Apache Kylin
2.5ANALYTICS
Kylin ships once a year with empty release notes and a native engine nobody is being told about.
◆ Current state
Apache Kylin's release stream is close to silent. Four of the six most recent tags carry nothing but the Maven release plugin's own commit message, and 5.0.4 in July 2026 arrived ten months after 5.0.3 with no notes at all. The last release that documented anything was 5.0.2 in April 2025, covering internal-table caching, partition-aware file merging and Gluten jar loading order.
◆ Where it's heading
The substance is in 5.0.0 and its follow-ups: Gluten with a ClickHouse backend as a native execution engine, internal tables, streaming and fusion models. That is a real architectural bet on native vectorised execution, but the project is not communicating it — releases ship as bare tags, and the gap between 5.0.3 and 5.0.4 suggests development has thinned to a trickle. For anyone tracking Kylin from the outside, the release feed is effectively no signal.
◆ Prediction
The entries do not support a confident call on what ships next; with untitled tags roughly annually, the useful signal about Kylin's direction will come from JIRA and the mailing list rather than from releases.
distributions3
6.3ANALYTICS
distributions3 0.3.0 adds sample-based distributions and likelihood derivatives
◆ Current state
An R package giving probability distributions a consistent object interface - d/p/q/r functions, moments, and prodist() methods that pull a fitted distribution out of a regression object. Version 0.3.0 is the first substantive release under Achim Zeileis's maintenance, and it widens what a distribution is allowed to be: Empirical() represents a distribution by a random sample rather than by parameters, and numerical fallbacks now fill in cdf(), pdf(), quantile(), random() and the moments for any object that implements only some of them. New score() and hessian() generics compute first and second derivatives of the log-likelihood with respect to the parameters, analytically for a few distributions and numerically for the rest.
◆ Where it's heading
Growth used to arrive as new distribution families contributed from outside - the extreme-value set, Erlang, later the Poisson binomial. This release changes the axis: alongside two new distributions it adds an inference layer (score, hessian) and a forecast-evaluation one (crps() methods against scoringRules), which are capabilities about distributions rather than more of them. Dependency weight is being cut at the same time, with ggplot2 demoted to Suggests and glue replaced by base R sprintf().
◆ Prediction
With numeric fallbacks and the derivative generics in place, expect analytic score() and hessian() methods to be filled in across more of the distribution catalogue. The constructor-default change is the likeliest source of follow-up fixes, since calls like Poisson() now return a length-zero distribution where they previously errored.
Alternatives to Apache Kylin and distributions3
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 Apache Kylin or distributions3.
Lightdash
Lightdash keeps handing authoring to outside agents and keeping the governed layer for itself.
Delta Lake
A 4.4.0 tag appears, but the feed carries only its release plumbing
Basedash
Basedash keeps pushing its data out of the workspace — now to people without accounts
RStudio
RStudio ships through release branches, and the notes are commit messages
dbt Core
dbt Fusion's second beta is adapter work: ClickHouse gets materializations, indexes, and catalogs
See all Apache Kylin alternatives → · See all distributions3 alternatives →
Recent activity from Apache Kylin and distributions3
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 9h agodistributions3Empirical distributions, plus score and hessian generics ⚡
- 29d agodistributions3Maintenance moves to Achim Zeileis; moment calculations corrected
- 1mo agoApache Kylin5.0.4 tagged with no release notes
- 10mo agodistributions3ggplot2 compatibility for the plotting functions
- 11mo agoApache Kylin5.0.3 tagged with no release notes
- 1y agoApache KylinInternal table caching, partition file merging, Gluten fixes
- 1y agoApache KylinApache Kylin 5.0.0 ⚡
- 1y agoApache KylinStreaming function fix
- 1y agodistributions3Poisson binomial distribution, with a normal-approximation fallback
- 2y agoApache Kylin4.0.5 tagged on the legacy line
- 3y agodistributions3is_discrete and is_continuous generics, plus elementwise type-safety
- 4y agodistributions3Extreme-value family, Erlang, and a plotting generic
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Apache Kylin and distributions3?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. distributions3 is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 1 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 Apache Kylin better than distributions3?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. distributions3 is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 1 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 Apache Kylin?
Top Apache Kylin alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Apache Kylin alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/apache-kylin for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to distributions3?
Top distributions3 alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "distributions3 alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/distributions3-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.