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broadcast vs hstats

A side-by-side editorial comparison of broadcast and hstats — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

broadcast vs hstats: at a glance

Featurebroadcasthstats
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesarray-broadcasting, rcpp, type-consistency, linear-algebrainteraction statistics, partial dependence, model explainability, r package
Last editorial update1h ago4h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is broadcast?

broadcast is filling in NumPy-style array broadcasting for R, operator by operator.

broadcast brings dimension-broadcasting semantics to R arrays and lists — elementwise operations between arrays of mismatched shape, plus casting methods between hierarchical lists and dimensional structures. It reached CRAN in September 2025 and has released roughly monthly since, accumulating operators (nor, nand, longest common substring), casting methods (cast_shallow2atomic, cast_hier2dim, hiernames2dimnames), and helpers (vector2array, undim, mbroadcasters).

Read the full broadcast trajectory →

What is hstats?

hstats settled into maintenance after its 1.0 restructuring, with model coverage the only thing still growing.

hstats computes Friedman's H-statistics, partial dependence, ICE curves and permutation importance for any model exposing a prediction function. The releases in view are consolidation: performance work on plain data.frames, ICE facetting for multioutput models, ranger survival support, and a ggplot 4.0 compatibility pass in 2025. The package moved to the ModelOriented organisation in 1.2.0.

Read the full hstats trajectory →

broadcast vs hstats: editorial side-by-side

B
broadcast
ANALYTICS
0.0

broadcast is filling in NumPy-style array broadcasting for R, operator by operator.

◆ Current state

broadcast brings dimension-broadcasting semantics to R arrays and lists — elementwise operations between arrays of mismatched shape, plus casting methods between hierarchical lists and dimensional structures. It reached CRAN in September 2025 and has released roughly monthly since, accumulating operators (nor, nand, longest common substring), casting methods (cast_shallow2atomic, cast_hier2dim, hiernames2dimnames), and helpers (vector2array, undim, mbroadcasters).

◆ Where it's heading

The package is in its post-launch consolidation year, and the release notes read accordingly: roughly half of each entry is a consistency correction rather than an addition. Zero-length results now carry the right type, comparison operators accept integer and logical inputs, the comment attribute survives operations, and the nand operator was found to be wrongly defined against C++ short-circuit evaluation. That ratio is what a young package looks like while its edge cases are being found.

◆ Prediction

Expect more operators and casting methods on the same cadence, with continued type-consistency corrections as users exercise unusual input combinations. Nothing in the entries points at an architectural change.

H
hstats
ANALYTICS
0.0

hstats settled into maintenance after its 1.0 restructuring, with model coverage the only thing still growing.

◆ Current state

hstats computes Friedman's H-statistics, partial dependence, ICE curves and permutation importance for any model exposing a prediction function. The releases in view are consolidation: performance work on plain data.frames, ICE facetting for multioutput models, ranger survival support, and a ggplot 4.0 compatibility pass in 2025. The package moved to the ModelOriented organisation in 1.2.0.

◆ Where it's heading

The structural work — the hstats_matrix object, quantile approximation, revised plotting — landed in 1.0.0 just outside this window, and nothing since has changed the package's shape. What continues is model-coverage plumbing: mlr3 classification modes, ranger survival behind a survival argument, and factor predictions added in 1.1.0 then removed again in 1.2.0. The most recent releases are compatibility-driven, tracking ggplot2 rather than the interaction statistics.

◆ Prediction

Expect the next release to be another dependency-compatibility pass or a new model backend working out of the box, rather than new interaction statistics.

Alternatives to broadcast and hstats

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 broadcast or hstats.

See all broadcast alternatives → · See all hstats alternatives →

Recent activity from broadcast and hstats

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 2mo agobroadcastnor and longest-common-substring operators added; nand corrected
  2. 5mo agobroadcastcheckNULL, checkNA and ecumprob added
  3. 8mo agobroadcastZero-length results and attribute preservation made consistent
  4. 9mo agobroadcastacast dimnames bug fixed; casting and helper surface widens
  5. 10mo agobroadcastrecurse_classed replaced by recurse_all in casting methods
  6. 10mo agohstatsggplot 4.0 compatibility and test coverage
  7. 11mo agobroadcastTitle case fixed for CRAN submission
  8. 1y agohstatsranger survival models supported out of the box
  9. 2y agohstatsMoves to ModelOriented; factor predictions removed
  10. 2y agohstatsICE facets for multioutput models; mlr3 fixes
  11. 2y agohstatsFaster data.frame paths; NaN H-statistics fixed
  12. 2y agohstatsFactor predictions and line-style 2D partial dependence

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between broadcast and hstats?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. broadcast and hstats 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 broadcast better than hstats?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. broadcast and hstats 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 broadcast?

Top broadcast alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "broadcast alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/broadcast-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to hstats?

Top hstats alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "hstats alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/hstats for the full list with editorial commentary on each.