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dggridR vs ggcorrplot

A side-by-side editorial comparison of dggridR and ggcorrplot — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

dggridR vs ggcorrplot: at a glance

FeaturedggridRggcorrplot
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.02.5
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesdiscrete-global-grids, spatial-indexing, geospatial, hexagonal-gridscorrelation, r, ggplot2, visualization
Last editorial update45m ago1h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is dggridR?

A discrete global grid generator grew cell traversal and became a usable spatial index.

dggridR builds discrete global grids — icosahedral tessellations of the Earth into equal-area hexagonal or triangular cells — by wrapping the DGGRID C++ engine. The 4.1.0 release adds dgneighbors, dgchildren and dgparent for moving between adjacent cells and across resolutions, plus dgpoints_to_cells and dgbin_points for mapping and aggregating point data into cells. New aperture 7 and mixed-aperture ISEA43H grid types arrive alongside them.

Read the full dggridR trajectory →

What is ggcorrplot?

ggcorrplot came back after four years and found its significance markers had been lying

ggcorrplot draws correlation matrices in ggplot2 with optional significance marking and hierarchical reordering. It sat untouched from late 2022 until mid-2026, then shipped 0.2.0 and 0.3.0 sixteen days apart. Between them they added the display options users had been requesting since 2016 and repaired a set of bugs where hc.order = TRUE silently changed which cells were marked significant.

Read the full ggcorrplot trajectory →

dggridR vs ggcorrplot: editorial side-by-side

D
dggridR
ANALYTICS
0.0

A discrete global grid generator grew cell traversal and became a usable spatial index.

◆ Current state

dggridR builds discrete global grids — icosahedral tessellations of the Earth into equal-area hexagonal or triangular cells — by wrapping the DGGRID C++ engine. The 4.1.0 release adds dgneighbors, dgchildren and dgparent for moving between adjacent cells and across resolutions, plus dgpoints_to_cells and dgbin_points for mapping and aggregating point data into cells. New aperture 7 and mixed-aperture ISEA43H grid types arrive alongside them.

◆ Where it's heading

The package changed hands in effect as well as in code: the 4.0.0 engine update to DGGRID v9.0b and the first real test suite were contributed by Sebastian Krantz, who also maintains the upstream engine fork, and 4.1.0's feature burst followed two weeks later. The direction of that burst is unmistakable — away from generating grids for plotting and toward using them as an indexing structure that point data gets binned into and navigated through.

◆ Prediction

Expect the cell hierarchy functions to extend to non-hexagonal apertures and multi-level traversal, closing the remaining gaps against established global indexing systems.

G
ggcorrplot
ANALYTICS
2.5

ggcorrplot came back after four years and found its significance markers had been lying

◆ Current state

ggcorrplot draws correlation matrices in ggplot2 with optional significance marking and hierarchical reordering. It sat untouched from late 2022 until mid-2026, then shipped 0.2.0 and 0.3.0 sixteen days apart. Between them they added the display options users had been requesting since 2016 and repaired a set of bugs where hc.order = TRUE silently changed which cells were marked significant.

◆ Where it's heading

Both releases chase the same target: parity with the older corrplot package inside a ggplot2 object. Significance stars appended to coefficient labels, circle scaling, decimal control, then boxed cells and glyphs sized by absolute correlation — these are corrplot's visual vocabulary reimplemented where they can be composed with other ggplot2 layers. The bug fixes point the other way, at foundations: p-values matched to cells by name rather than row position, clustering computed on the unrounded matrix, tl.col actually applied.

◆ Prediction

With the corrplot look largely reproduced and the correctness backlog cleared, the remaining gap is the mixed upper/lower display corrplot supports; that is the natural next argument if the current release pace holds.

Alternatives to dggridR and ggcorrplot

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 dggridR or ggcorrplot.

See all dggridR alternatives → · See all ggcorrplot alternatives →

Recent activity from dggridR and ggcorrplot

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 21d agoggcorrplotggcorrplot 0.3.0 adds boxed cells and correlation-sized squares
  2. 1mo agoggcorrplotggcorrplot 0.2.0 fixes significance markers broken by hc.order
  3. 3mo agodggridRCell neighbors, parents and children make the grid navigable
  4. 3mo agodggridRBundled DGGRID engine updated to v9.0b with a test suite
  5. 3mo agodggridRMaster merged into development ahead of the 4.0 work
  6. 3y agoggcorrplotggcorrplot 0.1.4
  7. 6y agoggcorrplotggcorrplot 0.1.3
  8. 7y agoggcorrplotggcorrplot 0.1.2
  9. 10y agoggcorrplotggcorrplot's first release: correlograms in ggplot2

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between dggridR and ggcorrplot?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ggcorrplot is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 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 dggridR better than ggcorrplot?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggcorrplot is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 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 dggridR?

Top dggridR alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "dggridR alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/dggridr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to ggcorrplot?

Top ggcorrplot alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggcorrplot alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggcorrplot for the full list with editorial commentary on each.