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Comparison · Analytics
dissmapr vs rmediation
A side-by-side editorial comparison of dissmapr and rmediation — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r package
dissmapr vs rmediation: at a glance
What is dissmapr?
dissmapr spent its first releases becoming citable rather than adding methods.
dissmapr provides an R workflow for compositional dissimilarity and turnover — occurrence data through spatial gridding and environmental linkage to order-wise dissimilarity and bioregional mapping. All three releases to date are infrastructure: a first citable archive in June 2026, then a maturity release aligning the package with the B-Cubed software development guide. The ten-function pipeline described in the notes has not changed across them.
What is rmediation?
RMediation shipped a three-normal CDF, then found it was silently wrong.
RMediation is a long-standing CRAN package for confidence intervals on mediated effects, now built on an S7 class hierarchy. Over eight weeks it added ProductNormal3 for serial indirect effects of the form a1*a2*b, folded the engine into the existing pprodnormal naming family, and then replaced that engine outright after finding it returned wrong probabilities without warning. The dev branch is at 1.7.0; CRAN still serves 1.6.1.
dissmapr vs rmediation: editorial side-by-side
dissmapr
0.0ANALYTICS
dissmapr spent its first releases becoming citable rather than adding methods.
◆ Current state
dissmapr provides an R workflow for compositional dissimilarity and turnover — occurrence data through spatial gridding and environmental linkage to order-wise dissimilarity and bioregional mapping. All three releases to date are infrastructure: a first citable archive in June 2026, then a maturity release aligning the package with the B-Cubed software development guide. The ten-function pipeline described in the notes has not changed across them.
◆ Where it's heading
The work is compliance-shaped rather than method-shaped: explicit @importFrom in place of whole-namespace imports, library() calls removed from package code, roughly 11 MB of development caches dropped, a runnable README quick-start, and Zenodo archival with CITATION.cff and codemeta.json. dissmapr moves in lockstep with its B-Cubed sibling invasimapr — both tagged 0.1.0 within three minutes of each other and 0.2.0 on the same day — so releases here reflect project-wide standards deadlines more than package-specific work. The stated roadmap of additional ecological distance metrics has not yet landed.
◆ Prediction
With standards work now signed off and R CMD check clean, the next release is the first real chance for the roadmap items — additional ecological distance metrics — to arrive.
rmediation
3.8ANALYTICS
RMediation shipped a three-normal CDF, then found it was silently wrong.
◆ Current state
RMediation is a long-standing CRAN package for confidence intervals on mediated effects, now built on an S7 class hierarchy. Over eight weeks it added ProductNormal3 for serial indirect effects of the form a1*a2*b, folded the engine into the existing pprodnormal naming family, and then replaced that engine outright after finding it returned wrong probabilities without warning. The dev branch is at 1.7.0; CRAN still serves 1.6.1.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is moving from a hand-rolled numerical layer to one that checks itself: the new default integrator escalates its node count until successive rules agree, warns when it hits the cap instead of returning a number, and exposes a diagnostics argument for the convergence estimate. The correctness fix went to dev ahead of the CRAN window rather than being held for it, which suggests wrong-answer bugs are treated as release-blocking regardless of cadence. Serial mediation is where the new surface area is concentrated.
◆ Prediction
1.7.0 exists specifically to land before CRAN's 2026-08-21 update window, so the next move is a CRAN submission promoting it to main; whether hcubature survives past that as a cross-check option is the open question.
Alternatives to dissmapr and rmediation
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 dissmapr or rmediation.
collinear
collinear has broken its API twice to stop making the user pick thresholds.
nert
nert put fourteen TERN datasets behind one dispatcher and called it stable.
scTypeEval
scTypeEval judges single-cell annotations without needing a ground truth to judge them against.
medrobust
medrobust made its partial-identification bounds usable by giving them confidence intervals.
probmed
probmed went from one probabilistic effect size to a family of them in sixteen days.
See all dissmapr alternatives → · See all rmediation alternatives →
Recent activity from dissmapr and rmediation
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8h agormediationv1.7.0 — pprodnormal3() correctness fix ⚡
- 1mo agodissmaprVersion bump; notes identical to 0.2.0
- 1mo agormediationp_prod3() renamed into the pprodnormal family
- 1mo agormediationProductNormal3: exact CDF for a product of three normals ⚡
- 1mo agodissmaprB-Cubed standards alignment, docs overhaul and a citable DOI
- 1mo agodissmaprdissmapr v0.1.0: First citable release
- 1mo agormediationmedfit reaches CRAN; Remotes pointer dropped
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between dissmapr and rmediation?
Both compete on the same themes — r package — within Analytics. rmediation is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 3.8 vs 0.0), with 1 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 dissmapr better than rmediation?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. rmediation is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 3.8 vs 0.0), with 1 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 dissmapr?
Top dissmapr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "dissmapr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/dissmapr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to rmediation?
Top rmediation alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "rmediation alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rmediation for the full list with editorial commentary on each.