parallelDist
parallelDist is in pure preservation mode — one build fix every few years.
Comparison · Analytics
broman vs OpenCTI
A side-by-side editorial comparison of broman and OpenCTI — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
broman vs OpenCTI: 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 OpenCTI?
OpenCTI is rebuilding its connector layer into a marketplace and wiring the platform to XTM Hub
The mainline is working through the consequences of the connector catalog redesign, with each release closing gaps around it: filters and saved searches became shareable, dashboards can reuse them, and background tasks can now edit relationship start and stop times in bulk. Alongside that, an LTS branch is being maintained in parallel — 7.260309.0-lts.7 backports the security fixes and dependency updates from the recent mainline releases without any of the feature work.
broman vs OpenCTI: 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.
OpenCTI
6.3ANALYTICS
OpenCTI is rebuilding its connector layer into a marketplace and wiring the platform to XTM Hub
◆ Current state
The mainline is working through the consequences of the connector catalog redesign, with each release closing gaps around it: filters and saved searches became shareable, dashboards can reuse them, and background tasks can now edit relationship start and stop times in bulk. Alongside that, an LTS branch is being maintained in parallel — 7.260309.0-lts.7 backports the security fixes and dependency updates from the recent mainline releases without any of the feature work.
◆ Where it's heading
Two things are running at once. The product arc is about making the platform's own surfaces composable — a faceted connector marketplace, reusable filters, workflow approval and draft metadata — rather than adding threat-intel primitives. The engineering arc is a maintained LTS channel that gets security parity and nothing else, which is how a project behaves once it has deployments it cannot ask to track weekly releases.
◆ Prediction
Expect the mainline to keep landing XTM Hub integration and workflow-governance work at roughly a weekly cadence, with a matching lts.8 backport following whenever the next batch of security fixes accumulates.
Alternatives to broman and OpenCTI
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 OpenCTI.
cairo
Cairo finally catches R's graphics engine, all the way to GE API 16.
rjdqa
rjdqa keeps refining one screen: the seasonal adjustment quality dashboard
epikit
epikit narrows to field-epidemiology helpers, handing proportions to a sibling package
SimInf
SimInf 10.0 turns an epidemic simulator into a tool that fits models to real time series
mutagen
A young package porting Stata's egen row-wise helpers to the tidyverse, one function per release
See all broman alternatives → · See all OpenCTI alternatives →
Recent activity from broman and OpenCTI
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoOpenCTILTS branch gets the security backport: access-scoped streams, dependency sweep
- 4d agoOpenCTIMass operations can now edit relation start and stop times
- 8d agoOpenCTISaved searches and dashboard filters become shareable and reusable
- 12d agoOpenCTIData sanity operations can be stopped mid-run
- 16d agoOpenCTIIntegrations experience reworked around the new catalog, plus draft approval workflows
- 24d agoOpenCTIConnector catalog is rebuilt as a faceted marketplace ⚡
- 8mo agobromanRemove R_ext/PrtUtil.h include flagged by CRAN
- 10mo agobromanFix exact-name matching in crayons()
- 11mo agobromanFix jiggle() with factors missing levels
- 1y agobromanrunningratio2() uses an adaptive window
- 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 OpenCTI?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. OpenCTI is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is broman better than OpenCTI?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. OpenCTI is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. 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 OpenCTI?
Top OpenCTI alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "OpenCTI alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/opencti for the full list with editorial commentary on each.