EvoPhylo
EvoPhylo added BEAST2 alongside MrBayes, then went quiet for two years.
Comparison · Analytics
broman vs weird
A side-by-side editorial comparison of broman and weird — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
broman vs weird: 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 weird?
weird rebuilt itself on distributional objects, and now the anomaly tooling composes with everything else.
An R package for anomaly detection and unusual-observation diagnostics, at four releases with a long gap between the 2024 patch and the 2026 major line. The current shape is set by 2.0.0, which refactored the package onto distributional objects and renamed its central concept from density_scores() to surprisals(). Since then the work has been filling that structure in: surprisals for more model classes, faster bandwidth and probability calculations, and new visual diagnostics.
broman vs weird: 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.
weird
0.0ANALYTICS
weird rebuilt itself on distributional objects, and now the anomaly tooling composes with everything else.
◆ Current state
An R package for anomaly detection and unusual-observation diagnostics, at four releases with a long gap between the 2024 patch and the 2026 major line. The current shape is set by 2.0.0, which refactored the package onto distributional objects and renamed its central concept from density_scores() to surprisals(). Since then the work has been filling that structure in: surprisals for more model classes, faster bandwidth and probability calculations, and new visual diagnostics.
◆ Where it's heading
The refactor onto a shared distribution representation is the decision everything else follows from. It let 2.1.0 add hdr() and parameters() methods for kde objects rather than bespoke accessors, and it let 3.0.0 bring in dist_mclust() to turn a Gaussian mixture model into the same object type — so a mixture, a kernel density estimate and a fitted distribution all flow through one interface. The 3.0.0 additions lean visual and multivariate: outlier maps plotting score distance against orthogonal distance, biplot projections with variable axes overlaid, and an augment() method for robust PCA objects. Dependencies have been shed steadily along the way — lookout, interpolation — while mvscale() moved out and then back in.
◆ Prediction
Expect surprisals() coverage to keep extending to further model classes, and the multivariate and robust-PCA diagnostics introduced in 3.0.0 to gain the same distributional-object treatment as the univariate side.
Alternatives to broman and weird
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 weird.
treespace
treespace ships once every year or two, and only when CRAN or a user forces it.
Rpath
Rpath 1.1.0 learns to read Ecopath's own files, easing migration off the desktop tool.
TAF
TAF keeps turning ICES stock assessments into reproducible, dependency-pinned projects.
parallelDist
parallelDist is in pure preservation mode — one build fix every few years.
cairo
Cairo finally catches R's graphics engine, all the way to GE API 16.
See all broman alternatives → · See all weird alternatives →
Recent activity from broman and weird
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoweirdOutlier maps, biplot projections, and Gaussian mixtures as distributional objects
- 3mo agoweirdsurprisals() reaches glm objects; lookout dependency dropped
- 6mo agoweirdPackage refactored onto distributional objects; density_scores becomes surprisals
- 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
- 2y agoweirdWine reviews dataset replaced with a fetch function
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between broman and weird?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. broman and weird 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 weird?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. broman and weird 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 weird?
Top weird alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "weird alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/weird-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.