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distributional vs ggstatsplot

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

Shared themes:r-package

distributional vs ggstatsplot: at a glance

Featuredistributionalggstatsplot
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesr-package, probability-distributions, distribution-arithmetic, numerical-methodsstatistical-plots, ggplot2, contingency-tables, hypothesis-testing
Last editorial update43m ago1h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is distributional?

distributional taught + and - to work on any pair of distributions, closing the algebra it started with.

The R package providing vectorised distribution objects — the substrate that forecasting and anomaly tooling in the same ecosystem builds on. Cadence has picked up sharply, with four releases in the six months to June 2026 against roughly one a year before that. Two kinds of work alternate: adding distribution families (Dirichlet, Horseshoe, Laplace, multivariate t, g-and-k, the extreme-value pair) and deepening what can be computed generically across all of them.

Read the full distributional trajectory →

What is ggstatsplot?

ggstatsplot reached 1.0 by adding tests, having outsourced its statistics years ago.

ggstatsplot produces ggplot2 graphics with statistical test results embedded in the subtitle and caption — comparisons, correlations, contingency tables, histograms. Since the 2019 refactoring that moved all statistical computation into the separate statsExpressions package, its own release notes have been dominated by upstream tracking: adapting to ggplot2, dplyr, purrr and easystats changes. The 1.0.0 release in April 2026 breaks that run with real additions to the contingency-table functions.

Read the full ggstatsplot trajectory →

distributional vs ggstatsplot: editorial side-by-side

D0.0

distributional taught + and - to work on any pair of distributions, closing the algebra it started with.

◆ Current state

The R package providing vectorised distribution objects — the substrate that forecasting and anomaly tooling in the same ecosystem builds on. Cadence has picked up sharply, with four releases in the six months to June 2026 against roughly one a year before that. Two kinds of work alternate: adding distribution families (Dirichlet, Horseshoe, Laplace, multivariate t, g-and-k, the extreme-value pair) and deepening what can be computed generically across all of them.

◆ Where it's heading

The generic-computation thread is the one that matters and it has been building steadily: a Monte Carlo default method for cdf(), has_symmetry() to let algorithms specialise, hdr() moving to exact results for symmetric distributions and 4096 quantiles elsewhere, open-versus-closed support intervals. Version 0.8.0 is where that thread arrives somewhere — arithmetic on arbitrary distributions, with closed forms used when they exist and numerical convolution when they do not. The package is positioning itself as a computational layer rather than a catalogue, which is consistent with how weird and the forecasting packages consume it.

◆ Prediction

Expect the numerical machinery behind dist_convolved() to be reused for other operators, and more generics like has_symmetry() that let downstream algorithms take exact paths when a distribution supports them.

G
ggstatsplot
ANALYTICS
0.0

ggstatsplot reached 1.0 by adding tests, having outsourced its statistics years ago.

◆ Current state

ggstatsplot produces ggplot2 graphics with statistical test results embedded in the subtitle and caption — comparisons, correlations, contingency tables, histograms. Since the 2019 refactoring that moved all statistical computation into the separate statsExpressions package, its own release notes have been dominated by upstream tracking: adapting to ggplot2, dplyr, purrr and easystats changes. The 1.0.0 release in April 2026 breaks that run with real additions to the contingency-table functions.

◆ Where it's heading

The architecture explains the cadence. With statistics living in statsExpressions, ggstatsplot's own releases are mostly the tax of sitting on top of a fast-moving plotting and tidyverse stack — five of the six most recent entries change nothing a user would notice. When substantive work does arrive it clusters in the plotting layer's coverage of test families, as in 1.0.0's one-sample goodness-of-fit support and pairwise contingency analyses. The maintainer is also visibly deliberate about scope, having removed the normality-curve overlay in 0.12.4 for being unrelated to the analysis in question.

◆ Prediction

Expect continued parity work across the plot family — features that exist in one function being extended to its siblings, as goodness-of-fit support moved from ggpiestats to ggbarstats — punctuated by maintenance releases tracking ggplot2 and easystats.

Alternatives to distributional and ggstatsplot

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 distributional or ggstatsplot.

See all distributional alternatives → · See all ggstatsplot alternatives →

Recent activity from distributional and ggstatsplot

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

  1. 1mo agodistributionalConditional S3 registration so the package loads on R before 4.3
  2. 1mo agodistributionalDistribution arithmetic: FFT convolution behind the + and - operators
  3. 2mo agodistributionalVectorised p in quantile() for inflated distributions; open brackets on infinite bounds
  4. 3mo agoggstatsplotPairwise contingency tests and one-sample goodness-of-fit
  5. 4mo agoggstatsplotInternal maintenance only
  6. 5mo agodistributionalDirichlet and Horseshoe distributions added
  7. 6mo agoggstatsplotAdapted to dplyr 1.2.0 and purrr 1.2.1
  8. 7mo agodistributionalhas_symmetry() generic, exact HDRs for symmetric distributions
  9. 8mo agoggstatsplotContributor list updated in DESCRIPTION
  10. 10mo agoggstatsplotSecondary axis label parsing fixed in gghistostats
  11. 11mo agoggstatsplotAdapted to the latest ggplot2 release
  12. 1y agodistributionalMonte Carlo cdf() default method; g-and-k, g-and-h and extreme-value families

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between distributional and ggstatsplot?

Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. distributional and ggstatsplot 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 distributional better than ggstatsplot?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. distributional and ggstatsplot 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 distributional?

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

What are the best alternatives to ggstatsplot?

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