HydroPortailStats
France's national flood statistics, ported out of Fortran and into R.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
bkmrhat vs metR
A side-by-side editorial comparison of bkmrhat and metR — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
bkmrhat vs metR: at a glance
What is bkmrhat?
A parallel-chain helper for bkmr that has settled into pure upkeep.
bkmrhat wraps Bayesian kernel machine regression (bkmr) so users can run and diagnose multiple MCMC chains in parallel, then combine or continue them. The functional surface has been stable since 2022, when chain-combining picked up a low-memory path and a seed-collision bug was corrected. The most recent release adds only diagnostic metadata to the package description.
What is metR?
A meteorology ggplot2 extension where the netCDF reader became the main event
metR supplies meteorological and oceanographic tools for R: contour and streamline geoms, EOF decomposition, wave fitting, and ReadNetCDF() for getting gridded data in. Development has concentrated heavily on that reader. Version 0.18.0 added subsetting by dimension index, so the first or last ten timesteps can be read without knowing how many exist; 0.18.1 moved time parsing to the CFtime package; 0.18.2 added cdo operations through rcdo and reading across multiple files in parallel, and fixed a subsetting bug where nearest-gridpoint matching could return data outside the requested range entirely.
bkmrhat vs metR: editorial side-by-side
bkmrhat
0.0INFRA · APIS
A parallel-chain helper for bkmr that has settled into pure upkeep.
◆ Current state
bkmrhat wraps Bayesian kernel machine regression (bkmr) so users can run and diagnose multiple MCMC chains in parallel, then combine or continue them. The functional surface has been stable since 2022, when chain-combining picked up a low-memory path and a seed-collision bug was corrected. The most recent release adds only diagnostic metadata to the package description.
◆ Where it's heading
Three releases across five years, and the newest carries no user-facing change at all. The package is in maintenance: it does what it set out to do for bkmr users, and updates now arrive only when CRAN or an upstream dependency forces them.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next release to be another compliance or dependency-driven patch rather than new functionality; the entries show no in-progress feature work.
metR
0.0INFRA · APIS
A meteorology ggplot2 extension where the netCDF reader became the main event
◆ Current state
metR supplies meteorological and oceanographic tools for R: contour and streamline geoms, EOF decomposition, wave fitting, and ReadNetCDF() for getting gridded data in. Development has concentrated heavily on that reader. Version 0.18.0 added subsetting by dimension index, so the first or last ten timesteps can be read without knowing how many exist; 0.18.1 moved time parsing to the CFtime package; 0.18.2 added cdo operations through rcdo and reading across multiple files in parallel, and fixed a subsetting bug where nearest-gridpoint matching could return data outside the requested range entirely.
◆ Where it's heading
Two threads run through the releases. The first is tracking ggplot2, absorbing the linewidth aesthetic, the trans to transform rename and guide compatibility as each landed upstream. The second is narrowing scope while deepening the data path: GetSMNData() was made defunct as too specific for a general package, raster and gdal dependencies were removed, and the udunits2 dependency was dropped when it was orphaned, initially replaced by a homebrewed date parser and eventually by CFtime. The result is a package steadily shedding its own code in favour of specialised upstream libraries.
◆ Prediction
Expect further ReadNetCDF() work, since it has received features in four of the last five releases and the rcdo integration opens a large surface of operations to expose.
Alternatives to bkmrhat and metR
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 bkmrhat or metR.
bsvarSIGNs
Sign, zero and narrative restrictions brought into the bsvars ecosystem.
estimatr
Fast design-based estimators for experiments, coasting on CRAN patches.
ggdist
The grammar of uncertainty visualization, now drawing the uncertainty in its own estimates.
ipaddress
IP address vectors for R that hit 1.0 and then went quiet.
ltertools
A column-key toolkit for stitching decades of ecological field data into one table.
See all bkmrhat alternatives → · See all metR alternatives →
Recent activity from bkmrhat and metR
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 7mo agometRSubset notation fix in the netCDF reader
- 9mo agobkmrhatDebugging metadata added to package description
- 11mo agometRcdo operations, parallel multi-file reads, and a subsetting correctness fix
- 1y agometRnetCDF time parsing handed to the CFtime package
- 1y agometRnetCDF subsetting by dimension index
- 1y agometRLongitude scales pass the transform argument correctly
- 1y agometREOF rotation takes a function, and scope narrows
- 4y agobkmrhatLow-memory chain combining plus a seed-collision fix
- 5y agobkmrhatFirst release: parallel chains and continuation for bkmr
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between bkmrhat and metR?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Infra & APIs. bkmrhat and metR 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 bkmrhat better than metR?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. bkmrhat and metR 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 bkmrhat?
Top bkmrhat alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "bkmrhat alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/bkmrhat for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to metR?
Top metR alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "metR alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/metr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.