easystats
The easystats meta-package is install tooling wrapped around a relicensed ecosystem.
Comparison · Analytics
bayesplot vs leaflet
A side-by-side editorial comparison of bayesplot and leaflet — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
bayesplot vs leaflet: at a glance
What is bayesplot?
bayesplot keeps widening its posterior-check catalogue while absorbing each ggplot2 break.
bayesplot supplies the plotting layer for Stan-adjacent Bayesian workflows: posterior predictive checks, MCMC diagnostics and LOO diagnostics. Releases through 2025 alternate between new plot families and keeping pace with ggplot2, which changed behavior twice in the visible window. Contributions increasingly arrive from outside the core Stan team.
What is leaflet?
leaflet relicensed to MIT and finished migrating off R's retired spatial stack
leaflet is the R binding for the Leaflet mapping library. Its recent releases are dominated by one long migration: away from sp, rgdal, rgeos and raster, and toward sf and terra. Version 2.2.3 completed the user-facing half of that - sp is no longer installed by default, and bundled datasets ship as sf objects - while also relicensing the package from GPL-2 to MIT.
bayesplot vs leaflet: editorial side-by-side
bayesplot
0.0ANALYTICS
bayesplot keeps widening its posterior-check catalogue while absorbing each ggplot2 break.
◆ Current state
bayesplot supplies the plotting layer for Stan-adjacent Bayesian workflows: posterior predictive checks, MCMC diagnostics and LOO diagnostics. Releases through 2025 alternate between new plot families and keeping pace with ggplot2, which changed behavior twice in the visible window. Contributions increasingly arrive from outside the core Stan team.
◆ Where it's heading
Two forces drive the release line: expanding what can be checked visually, and absorbing upstream ggplot2 churn. The 1.13-1.14 pair shows the first, adding LOO-PIT ECDF plots, quantile dot plots and discrete-data handling across the stat family, while 1.12 and 1.15 are largely spent on ggplot2 3.6 and 4.0 compatibility. The recurring new-contributor lists suggest maintenance load is being spread rather than concentrated.
◆ Prediction
Discrete-data support has rolled out plot family by plot family across three releases; the next release most likely continues that sweep and finishes the ggplot2 v4 adaptation.
leaflet
0.0ANALYTICS
leaflet relicensed to MIT and finished migrating off R's retired spatial stack
◆ Current state
leaflet is the R binding for the Leaflet mapping library. Its recent releases are dominated by one long migration: away from sp, rgdal, rgeos and raster, and toward sf and terra. Version 2.2.3 completed the user-facing half of that - sp is no longer installed by default, and bundled datasets ship as sf objects - while also relicensing the package from GPL-2 to MIT.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a package being brought into line with an ecosystem that changed underneath it. The retirement of rgdal and rgeos forced the terra and sf work; the license change and dependency reductions are the maintainers taking the opportunity to clean up while they are already in there. Feature work, such as the full viridisLite palette set, arrives as a side effect of the tidying.
◆ Prediction
With the sp path now opt-in and the retired geospatial dependencies gone, expect the remaining work to be small: palette and provider-tile handling, and keeping the bundled JavaScript current.
Alternatives to bayesplot and leaflet
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 bayesplot or leaflet.
discrim
discrim settled into a thin engine shim after handing its model definitions to parsnip.
dbparser
dbparser shed its database and CSV writers to become just a DrugBank parser.
desirability2
desirability2 is making multi-metric model selection a first-class tidymodels step.
crosstalk
crosstalk is frozen infrastructure: four releases in five years, mostly CRAN upkeep.
cmdstanr
cmdstanr keeps adding fast approximations beside full HMC, and fighting Windows toolchains.
See all bayesplot alternatives → · See all leaflet alternatives →
Recent activity from bayesplot and leaflet
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8mo agobayesplotmcmc_scatter gains shape; pre-ggplot2 v4 theme behavior restored
- 11mo agoleafletMIT relicensing and sp dropped from default installs ⚡
- 11mo agobayesplotQuantile dot plots and broader discrete-data support
- 1y agobayesplotppc_loo_pit_ecdf() added; KM overlays gain truncation control
- 1y agobayesplotggplot2 3.6 compatibility and a run of plot-data fixes
- 2y agoleafletterra CRS handling fixed; raster images accept layer options
- 2y agobayesplotPatch caps ppc_pit_ecdf evaluation points at 1000
- 2y agobayesplotbins/breaks across histograms; all LOO plots accept psis_object
- 2y agoleafletProvider tile dependency is cacheable by knitr again
- 2y agoleafletAdds terra support and removes rgdal and rgeos
- 3y agoleafletUpdates proj4.js and fixes examples to stay on CRAN
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between bayesplot and leaflet?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. bayesplot and leaflet 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 bayesplot better than leaflet?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. bayesplot and leaflet 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 Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to bayesplot?
Top bayesplot alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "bayesplot alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/bayesplot for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to leaflet?
Top leaflet alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "leaflet alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/leaflet-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.