rnaturalearth
rnaturalearth finished its sp exit and is now optimising how the data actually arrives.
Comparison · Analytics
bayesplot vs taxa
A side-by-side editorial comparison of bayesplot and taxa — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
bayesplot vs taxa: 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 taxa?
taxa started a ground-up rewrite in 2021 and has published almost nothing since.
0.4.0 began a complete rewrite aimed at making the component classes behave like base R vectors, explicitly shipping without the `taxmap` class and parking the old implementation inside metacoder until the new one matured. Four years later that is still where things stand: 0.4.2 experimented with `''` instead of `NA` for missing values and chased a vctrs test break, and 0.4.4 fixed CRAN check issues. The releases before the rewrite were the productive ones — `taxonomy_table()`, `print_tree()`, `get_dataset()`, fuzzy name matching, faster parsers.
bayesplot vs taxa: 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.
taxa
0.0ANALYTICS
taxa started a ground-up rewrite in 2021 and has published almost nothing since.
◆ Current state
0.4.0 began a complete rewrite aimed at making the component classes behave like base R vectors, explicitly shipping without the `taxmap` class and parking the old implementation inside metacoder until the new one matured. Four years later that is still where things stand: 0.4.2 experimented with `''` instead of `NA` for missing values and chased a vctrs test break, and 0.4.4 fixed CRAN check issues. The releases before the rewrite were the productive ones — `taxonomy_table()`, `print_tree()`, `get_dataset()`, fuzzy name matching, faster parsers.
◆ Where it's heading
The rewrite has not landed. `taxmap`, the class most users came for, was never reimplemented in the new design, and the only releases since are CRAN compliance. Meanwhile metacoder still carries the old taxa, which means the ecosystem is running on the version the rewrite was meant to replace. This reads as a stalled migration rather than an active one.
◆ Prediction
Nothing in the entries indicates the rewrite is resuming; the likely next release is another CRAN-check fix. Whether `taxmap` ever arrives in the new design is unresolved.
Alternatives to bayesplot and taxa
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 taxa.
writexl
writexl spent nine years refusing to do formatting, then shipped all of it in 2.0.0.
rgbif
rgbif is steadily pushing users off paged searching and onto real downloads.
rstanarm
rstanarm is community-maintained now, tracking Stan and lme4 rather than adding models.
rotl
rotl's whole release history is keeping name matching honest against a moving taxonomy.
taxize
taxize spends its releases absorbing other people's API changes, one dead source at a time.
See all bayesplot alternatives → · See all taxa alternatives →
Recent activity from bayesplot and taxa
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8mo agobayesplotmcmc_scatter gains shape; pre-ggplot2 v4 theme behavior restored
- 11mo agobayesplotQuantile dot plots and broader discrete-data support
- 1y agotaxataxa 0.4.4 fixes CRAN check issues
- 1y agobayesplotppc_loo_pit_ecdf() added; KM overlays gain truncation control
- 1y agobayesplotggplot2 3.6 compatibility and a run of plot-data fixes
- 2y agobayesplotPatch caps ppc_pit_ecdf evaluation points at 1000
- 2y agobayesplotbins/breaks across histograms; all LOO plots accept psis_object
- 4y agotaxataxa 0.4.2 tries empty strings for missing values
- 5y agotaxataxa 0.4.0 begins a base-R-vector rewrite without taxmap ⚡
- 6y agotaxataxa 0.3.4 fixes n_obs with numeric column names
- 6y agotaxataxa 0.3.3 supports numeric column names in taxmap
- 7y agotaxataxa 0.3.2 fixes parsers and adds negative class_col indexes
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between bayesplot and taxa?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. bayesplot and taxa 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 taxa?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. bayesplot and taxa 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 taxa?
Top taxa alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "taxa alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/taxa-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.