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Contribution-driven maintenance on a package whose last structural change was magick support.
Comparison · Analytics
dials vs ggpubr
A side-by-side editorial comparison of dials and ggpubr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
dials vs ggpubr: at a glance
What is dials?
dials is quietly registering the tuning parameters for tidymodels' deep-learning push
dials defines the parameter objects and grid constructors that tidymodels tunes over, which makes its release notes a reliable early read on what the rest of the stack is about to support. The last two releases are dominated by attention-model parameters — SAINT and tabular deep learning via brulee, TabPFN via parsnip's tab_pfn() — alongside catboost parameters for bonsai and calibration parameters for tailor.
What is ggpubr?
ggpubr reached 1.0.0 with p-value formatting presets for specific journals
ggpubr adds publication-ready statistics and annotation to ggplot2. Two releases define its capability: 0.5.0 introduced the stat_*_test family and geom_pwc() for pairwise comparison brackets, and 1.0.0 added p-value formatting presets matching named journal house styles. In between, most releases are ggplot2 and dplyr deprecation chasing.
dials vs ggpubr: editorial side-by-side
dials
0.0ANALYTICS
dials is quietly registering the tuning parameters for tidymodels' deep-learning push
◆ Current state
dials defines the parameter objects and grid constructors that tidymodels tunes over, which makes its release notes a reliable early read on what the rest of the stack is about to support. The last two releases are dominated by attention-model parameters — SAINT and tabular deep learning via brulee, TabPFN via parsnip's tab_pfn() — alongside catboost parameters for bonsai and calibration parameters for tailor.
◆ Where it's heading
The grid machinery itself is settled: grid_space_filling() consolidated the older designs, and the grid_*() functions now error rather than warn on the wrong size argument. What keeps moving is the parameter catalog, and it is moving toward neural and foundation-model territory that tidymodels historically left alone. Error-message quality is a steady secondary theme.
◆ Prediction
Expect further parameter objects to land ahead of the parsnip and brulee releases that use them — the attention and tabular-foundation-model work in flight is the clearest thing the entries point to.
ggpubr
0.0ANALYTICS
ggpubr reached 1.0.0 with p-value formatting presets for specific journals
◆ Current state
ggpubr adds publication-ready statistics and annotation to ggplot2. Two releases define its capability: 0.5.0 introduced the stat_*_test family and geom_pwc() for pairwise comparison brackets, and 1.0.0 added p-value formatting presets matching named journal house styles. In between, most releases are ggplot2 and dplyr deprecation chasing.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is moving from drawing statistics to matching the conventions of where they get published - style presets are a different kind of feature from a new test. That sits on a persistent maintenance load: after_stat migrations, linewidth parameters, R-devel changing how the Wilcoxon test handles ties. ggpubr absorbs upstream deprecations so that figure code written years ago keeps rendering.
◆ Prediction
Expect the preset list to grow as users request their own journals' conventions, and the deprecation-chasing to continue with each ggplot2 release; the statistical test coverage looks complete enough that additions there would be surprising.
Alternatives to dials and ggpubr
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 dials or ggpubr.
pins
pins keeps adding a storage backend per release while retiring its original API
tsibble
tsibble shipped one release in five and a half years - the data structure is finished
yardstick
yardstick made fairness metrics a first-class part of tidymodels evaluation
tune
tune extends tuning past the model itself to postprocessors, and adds a second parallel backend
leaflet
leaflet relicensed to MIT and finished migrating off R's retired spatial stack
See all dials alternatives → · See all ggpubr alternatives →
Recent activity from dials and ggpubr
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoggpubrJournal-specific p-value formatting presets in 1.0.0 ⚡
- 1mo agodialsAttention and tabular deep-learning parameters for brulee models
- 4mo agodialsParameters for ordinal_reg() and the tab_pfn() foundation model
- 5mo agoggpubrRaises R and dplyr minimums, migrates off deprecated syntax
- 9mo agoggpubrPins Wilcoxon p-values against an R-devel change
- 11mo agodialsprop_terms() for supervised feature selection recipes
- 1y agodialsCalibration method parameters for classification and regression
- 1y agoggpubrFixes after_stat() namespace failures in reverse dependencies
- 1y agodialsPostprocessing parameters added; grid size mismatches now error
- 2y agodialsgrid_space_filling() consolidates the space-filling designs
- 3y agoggpubrggadjust_pvalue() and reproducible jitter seeds
- 3y agoggpubrgeom_pwc() and the stat_*_test family arrive ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between dials and ggpubr?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. dials and ggpubr 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 dials better than ggpubr?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. dials and ggpubr 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 dials?
Top dials alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "dials alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/dials for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to ggpubr?
Top ggpubr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggpubr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggpubr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.