rnaturalearth
rnaturalearth finished its sp exit and is now optimising how the data actually arrives.
Comparison · Analytics
bonsai vs taxa
A side-by-side editorial comparison of bonsai and taxa — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
bonsai vs taxa: at a glance
What is bonsai?
bonsai keeps widening tidymodels' boosted-tree engine bench, catboost most recently
bonsai exists to attach non-core tree engines to parsnip's boost_tree() and rand_forest(), and the release history reads as a steady accumulation of them: partykit, aorsf, lightgbm, and now catboost. The 0.4.x line is spent making catboost behave like a full tidymodels citizen rather than adding anything new.
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.
bonsai vs taxa: editorial side-by-side
bonsai
0.0ANALYTICS
bonsai keeps widening tidymodels' boosted-tree engine bench, catboost most recently
◆ Current state
bonsai exists to attach non-core tree engines to parsnip's boost_tree() and rand_forest(), and the release history reads as a steady accumulation of them: partykit, aorsf, lightgbm, and now catboost. The 0.4.x line is spent making catboost behave like a full tidymodels citizen rather than adding anything new.
◆ Where it's heading
Each engine follows the same arc — land it, then close the gaps that keep it from tuning cleanly (parameter naming, multi_predict, threading, case weights). Recent work is squarely in that second phase for catboost, with dials supplying the matching parameter objects on its own release schedule. Bug-fix density is high relative to new surface.
◆ Prediction
Expect the catboost integration to keep filling in tuning and GPU-related arguments before any further engine is added; the entries give no signal about which engine would come next.
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 bonsai 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 bonsai 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.
Recent activity from bonsai and taxa
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2mo agobonsaicatboost gains multi_predict() and corrected tuning parameters
- 1y agotaxataxa 0.4.4 fixes CRAN check issues
- 1y agobonsaicatboost engine added to boost_tree()
- 1y agobonsailightgbm accepts sparse matrices for fit and predict
- 2y agobonsaiaorsf fit failure in multisession workers fixed
- 2y agobonsaiaorsf engine added; lightgbm gains dataset params and case weights
- 3y agobonsailightgbm num_leaves becomes tunable; alias arguments disallowed
- 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 bonsai and taxa?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. bonsai 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 bonsai better than taxa?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. bonsai 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 bonsai?
Top bonsai alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "bonsai alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/bonsai-r 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.