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Comparison · Infra & APIs
chromote vs forestploter
A side-by-side editorial comparison of chromote and forestploter — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
chromote vs forestploter: at a glance
What is chromote?
chromote turned the browser itself into a pinned, downloadable dependency.
chromote drives headless Chrome from R over the DevTools Protocol and underpins the R screenshot and app-testing stack. The visible history is shaped almost entirely by Chrome's own changes: old headless mode removed, DevTools URLs moved, viewport APIs deprecated. Version 0.5.0 answered that by letting chromote fetch and pin specific Chrome builds itself.
What is forestploter?
A forest plot package that keeps handing users control of one more graphical detail.
forestploter draws forest plots where the layout is driven by the data frame itself, so text columns and confidence intervals sit in the same grid. The theme function has become the package's centre of gravity: it now controls graphical parameters for titles, legends, axis, arrow labels, footnotes, and reference lines, with multi-column and row-order legend controls added most recently. Two releases shipped nine minutes apart in April 2026 after a two-year gap, deprecating some theme parameters, removing inter-cell gaps, and improving tick breaks.
chromote vs forestploter: editorial side-by-side
chromote
0.0INFRA · APIS
chromote turned the browser itself into a pinned, downloadable dependency.
◆ Current state
chromote drives headless Chrome from R over the DevTools Protocol and underpins the R screenshot and app-testing stack. The visible history is shaped almost entirely by Chrome's own changes: old headless mode removed, DevTools URLs moved, viewport APIs deprecated. Version 0.5.0 answered that by letting chromote fetch and pin specific Chrome builds itself.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has moved from reacting to Chrome upgrades to controlling them. The 0.3.0 and 0.4.0 pair tracked the headless-mode transition by first adding an option and then flipping the default; 0.5.0 removed the need to track it at all by managing versioned binaries through Chrome for Testing. Alongside that, the session API keeps accumulating helpers that collapse multi-step DevTools call sequences, such as $go_to() and $set_viewport_size().
◆ Prediction
The version-management features shipped marked experimental, so the likely next step is stabilizing that API and extending the session helpers that wrap common DevTools sequences.
forestploter
0.0INFRA · APIS
A forest plot package that keeps handing users control of one more graphical detail.
◆ Current state
forestploter draws forest plots where the layout is driven by the data frame itself, so text columns and confidence intervals sit in the same grid. The theme function has become the package's centre of gravity: it now controls graphical parameters for titles, legends, axis, arrow labels, footnotes, and reference lines, with multi-column and row-order legend controls added most recently. Two releases shipped nine minutes apart in April 2026 after a two-year gap, deprecating some theme parameters, removing inter-cell gaps, and improving tick breaks.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction has been consistent for four years: whatever a user might want to restyle eventually becomes an argument. Point size stopped being transformed, cell height adjustment was removed as unwanted, legends gained size, column, and fill-order control, and vertical lines learned to extend the full plot height and to draw beneath the whiskers. The one structural move was 1.1.0, which let callers supply their own confidence-interval and summary drawing functions — turning a fixed renderer into an extensible one. Everything since has been the arguments that extensibility did not cover.
◆ Prediction
The latest release deprecates theme parameters rather than adding them, which suggests the next one consolidates the theme surface that has grown for four years rather than extending it further.
Alternatives to chromote and forestploter
Other Infra & APIs 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 chromote or forestploter.
WPML
WPML made machine translation the default, and its point releases keep chasing WordPress and page builders.
ggInterval
Interval-valued data plotting, spending 2026 making its function names and examples survive CRAN.
rgm
A microbiome network model that got itself un-archived by deleting the dependency that killed it.
contagionchannels
Three releases in ten days, every one of them a CRAN reviewer's correction rather than a code change.
tidyaudit
Pipeline provenance for tidyverse workflows, recording what changed at each step without keeping the data.
See all chromote alternatives → · See all forestploter alternatives →
Recent activity from chromote and forestploter
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3mo agoforestploterTheme parameters deprecated; cell gaps removed, ticks improved
- 3mo agoforestploterMulti-column legends and full-height vertical lines
- 1y agochromote$go_to() helper added; DevTools view fixed for Chrome 135
- 1y agochromoteVersioned Chrome downloads and viewport control arrive ⚡
- 1y agochromoteDefault switches to new headless mode for Chrome v132+
- 1y agochromoteHeadless mode now selectable via option or env var
- 1y agochromoteFix launch_chrome() error caused by a typo
- 2y agoforestploterFull graphical control over titles, legends, axis and footnotes
- 2y agochromoteis_active() redefined; adds respawn() and screenshot options
- 2y agoforestploterTick digit calculation improved; automatic cell height removed
- 3y agoforestploterCustom CI and summary drawing functions; boxplots inside the plot
- 3y agoforestploterArbitrary grobs and math symbols can be placed in cells
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between chromote and forestploter?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. chromote and forestploter 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 chromote better than forestploter?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. chromote and forestploter 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 Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to chromote?
Top chromote alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "chromote alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/chromote for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to forestploter?
Top forestploter alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "forestploter alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/forestploter for the full list with editorial commentary on each.