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Comparison · Analytics
broman vs cairo
A side-by-side editorial comparison of broman and cairo — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
broman vs cairo: at a glance
What is broman?
A statistician's personal toolbox, growing one plotting utility at a time
broman is Karl Broman's collection of personal R utilities — base-graphics plotting helpers such as grayplot, dotplot and timeplot, running-window summaries, and assorted conveniences. Recent releases alternate between small additions, like runningratio2() with an adaptive window sized to hit a target denominator, and narrow bug fixes in crayons() and jiggle(). Version 0.92 removes an include that had begun warning on CRAN.
What is cairo?
Cairo finally catches R's graphics engine, all the way to GE API 16.
Cairo is the R device that renders plots through the cairo library, and until 1.7-0 it lagged R's own graphics engine by several API generations. That release closes the gap to GE API 16 (R 4.5.0), adding fill patterns, masks and groups. The releases before it were maintenance: a segfault shim for grid, a bashism removal in configure, and Windows font and build fixes.
broman vs cairo: editorial side-by-side
broman
0.0ANALYTICS
A statistician's personal toolbox, growing one plotting utility at a time
◆ Current state
broman is Karl Broman's collection of personal R utilities — base-graphics plotting helpers such as grayplot, dotplot and timeplot, running-window summaries, and assorted conveniences. Recent releases alternate between small additions, like runningratio2() with an adaptive window sized to hit a target denominator, and narrow bug fixes in crayons() and jiggle(). Version 0.92 removes an include that had begun warning on CRAN.
◆ Where it's heading
The additions cluster around two themes: time-axis plotting and running-window summaries, both of which have been extended across several releases. Nothing here is planned in the usual sense — functions appear when the author needs them and bugs are fixed when they surface downstream, as jiggle() did through dotplot(). The C-level cleanup in 0.92 matches the same change made to R/qtl the same week, which is what maintaining a set of packages under one author looks like.
◆ Prediction
Both recent function additions extend existing families rather than starting new ones, so the next release is most likely another variant in the running-window or time-plotting group, or a fix surfaced by one of the author's other packages.
cairo
0.0ANALYTICS
Cairo finally catches R's graphics engine, all the way to GE API 16.
◆ Current state
Cairo is the R device that renders plots through the cairo library, and until 1.7-0 it lagged R's own graphics engine by several API generations. That release closes the gap to GE API 16 (R 4.5.0), adding fill patterns, masks and groups. The releases before it were maintenance: a segfault shim for grid, a bashism removal in configure, and Windows font and build fixes.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc is catch-up, executed one API generation at a time. Glyph rendering arrived in 1.6-3, GE 15 stubs in 1.6-5 existed only to stop grid from segfaulting, and 1.7-0 delivers the real GE 13/14/16 feature set rather than placeholders. Alongside that, dropping the CAIROGD_VER C API and the mkdist step means the package now builds with plain R CMD build, which reads as deliberate reduction of maintenance overhead.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next releases to be corrective rather than additive: the entries show every API adoption here has been followed by a fix release, and patterns, masks and groups are a much larger surface than glyphs were.
Alternatives to broman and cairo
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 broman or cairo.
geodist
geodist stays dependency-free and fast, and warns you when 'cheap' distances stop being honest.
errors
errors keeps making uncertainty print the way each scientific field expects.
CMAQ
CMAQ went global in v5.5, and has been patching that surface ever since.
enpls
enpls has not changed its statistics since 2016 — only its website, twice.
grex
grex is a lookup table with a version number — it ships when the annotation moves.
See all broman alternatives → · See all cairo alternatives →
Recent activity from broman and cairo
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8mo agobromanRemove R_ext/PrtUtil.h include flagged by CRAN
- 9mo agocairoCairo adds fill patterns, masks and groups (GE API 16) ⚡
- 10mo agobromanFix exact-name matching in crayons()
- 11mo agobromanFix jiggle() with factors missing levels
- 11mo agocairoCairo 1.6-4: configure cleanup, locatorBell dropped on X11
- 11mo agocairoCairo 1.6-5 stubs GE 15 to stop grid segfaulting
- 1y agobromanrunningratio2() uses an adaptive window
- 2y agocairoCairo 1.6-2
- 2y agocairoCairo 1.6-3 adds glyph rendering for grid.glyph()
- 2y agobromantimeplot() added; running functions accept NAs
- 2y agobromantime_axis() added for date-time axis labels
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between broman and cairo?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. broman and cairo 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 broman better than cairo?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. broman and cairo 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 broman?
Top broman alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "broman alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/broman-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to cairo?
Top cairo alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "cairo alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/cairo-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.