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Comparison · Analytics
broman vs seriation
A side-by-side editorial comparison of broman and seriation — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
broman vs seriation: 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 seriation?
seriation stopped shipping algorithms and started shipping a way to pick between them.
seriation finds meaningful orderings for matrices, distance objects and dendrograms, and carries a large registry of methods from classic combinatorial criteria to t-SNE and UMAP embeddings. The 1.5.0 release added a layer above that registry — seriate_best(), seriate_rep() and seriate_improve() — which run randomized methods repeatedly, in parallel, and keep the best result. Recent work is definitional and numeric rather than additive: 1.5.8 corrects the linear seriation criterion to match Hubert and Schultz's original 1976 definition.
broman vs seriation: 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.
seriation
0.0ANALYTICS
seriation stopped shipping algorithms and started shipping a way to pick between them.
◆ Current state
seriation finds meaningful orderings for matrices, distance objects and dendrograms, and carries a large registry of methods from classic combinatorial criteria to t-SNE and UMAP embeddings. The 1.5.0 release added a layer above that registry — seriate_best(), seriate_rep() and seriate_improve() — which run randomized methods repeatedly, in parallel, and keep the best result. Recent work is definitional and numeric rather than additive: 1.5.8 corrects the linear seriation criterion to match Hubert and Schultz's original 1976 definition.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has shifted from breadth to judgment. Through 1.3.x the additions were new methods; from 1.5.0 the registry started carrying metadata about the methods — whether they are randomized, what criterion they optimize — so the package could choose and evaluate on the user's behalf. The 1.5.6 replacement of FORTRAN with C for BEA and ME points the same way, reducing the legacy surface underneath that machinery.
◆ Prediction
Further criterion audits are the likeliest next move, since 1.5.8 shows a published definition being reconciled against the implementation and the registry now records what each method optimizes. Expect corrections rather than new seriation algorithms.
Alternatives to broman and seriation
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 seriation.
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 seriation alternatives →
Recent activity from broman and seriation
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8mo agobromanRemove R_ext/PrtUtil.h include flagged by CRAN
- 10mo agobromanFix exact-name matching in crayons()
- 11mo agobromanFix jiggle() with factors missing levels
- 0y agoseriationseriation 1.5.8 realigns linear criterion with Hubert and Schultz
- 1y agobromanrunningratio2() uses an adaptive window
- 1y agoseriationseriation 1.5.7 adds BK_unconstrained, handles tiny inputs
- 1y agoseriationseriation 1.5.6 replaces FORTRAN BEA with C, modernizes allocation
- 2y agobromantimeplot() added; running functions accept NAs
- 2y agobromantime_axis() added for date-time axis labels
- 2y agoseriationseriation 1.5.5 digest: AOE method, rep parameter, MDS_angle fix
- 3y agoseriationseriation 1.5.1 refines pimage, permute and hmap
- 3y agoseriationseriation 1.5.0 adds seriate_best and parallel repeated search ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between broman and seriation?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. broman and seriation 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 seriation?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. broman and seriation 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 seriation?
Top seriation alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "seriation alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/seriation-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.