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A 4.4.0 tag appears, but the feed carries only its release plumbing
Comparison · Analytics
distributions3 vs INBOmd
A side-by-side editorial comparison of distributions3 and INBOmd — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
distributions3 vs INBOmd: at a glance
What is distributions3?
distributions3 0.3.0 adds sample-based distributions and likelihood derivatives
An R package giving probability distributions a consistent object interface - d/p/q/r functions, moments, and prodist() methods that pull a fitted distribution out of a regression object. Version 0.3.0 is the first substantive release under Achim Zeileis's maintenance, and it widens what a distribution is allowed to be: Empirical() represents a distribution by a random sample rather than by parameters, and numerical fallbacks now fill in cdf(), pdf(), quantile(), random() and the moments for any object that implements only some of them. New score() and hessian() generics compute first and second derivatives of the log-likelihood with respect to the parameters, analytically for a few distributions and numerically for the rest.
What is INBOmd?
Institutional report templates where a missing metadata field watermarks the whole document.
INBOmd supplies R Markdown output formats — PDF, gitbook, EPUB — carrying the house style and colophon requirements of INBO, the Flemish nature and forest research institute. Its distinguishing design decision is enforcement by embarrassment: an incomplete colophon stamps a watermark across every page until the required fields are filled in. Recent releases are small corrections, with the substantive template work sitting several years back.
distributions3 vs INBOmd: editorial side-by-side
distributions3
6.3ANALYTICS
distributions3 0.3.0 adds sample-based distributions and likelihood derivatives
◆ Current state
An R package giving probability distributions a consistent object interface - d/p/q/r functions, moments, and prodist() methods that pull a fitted distribution out of a regression object. Version 0.3.0 is the first substantive release under Achim Zeileis's maintenance, and it widens what a distribution is allowed to be: Empirical() represents a distribution by a random sample rather than by parameters, and numerical fallbacks now fill in cdf(), pdf(), quantile(), random() and the moments for any object that implements only some of them. New score() and hessian() generics compute first and second derivatives of the log-likelihood with respect to the parameters, analytically for a few distributions and numerically for the rest.
◆ Where it's heading
Growth used to arrive as new distribution families contributed from outside - the extreme-value set, Erlang, later the Poisson binomial. This release changes the axis: alongside two new distributions it adds an inference layer (score, hessian) and a forecast-evaluation one (crps() methods against scoringRules), which are capabilities about distributions rather than more of them. Dependency weight is being cut at the same time, with ggplot2 demoted to Suggests and glue replaced by base R sprintf().
◆ Prediction
With numeric fallbacks and the derivative generics in place, expect analytic score() and hessian() methods to be filled in across more of the distribution catalogue. The constructor-default change is the likeliest source of follow-up fixes, since calls like Poisson() now return a length-zero distribution where they previously errored.
INBOmd
0.0ANALYTICS
Institutional report templates where a missing metadata field watermarks the whole document.
◆ Current state
INBOmd supplies R Markdown output formats — PDF, gitbook, EPUB — carrying the house style and colophon requirements of INBO, the Flemish nature and forest research institute. Its distinguishing design decision is enforcement by embarrassment: an incomplete colophon stamps a watermark across every page until the required fields are filled in. Recent releases are small corrections, with the substantive template work sitting several years back.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has settled into maintenance around a stable feature set, with recent activity split between watermark and colophon edge cases and keeping in step with its siblings — it picked up the new citeme dependency within days of checklist splitting that package out. The open work is the long tail of citation rendering across three output formats, where subtitles, colophon fields and DOIs each surface separately. Nothing here suggests new output formats are planned.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued small fixes to colophon and citation rendering across the three output formats, and dependency updates tracking the checklist and citeme packages it sits alongside.
Alternatives to distributions3 and INBOmd
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 distributions3 or INBOmd.
Basedash
Basedash keeps pushing its data out of the workspace — now to people without accounts
RStudio
RStudio ships through release branches, and the notes are commit messages
dbt Core
dbt Fusion's second beta is adapter work: ClickHouse gets materializations, indexes, and catalogs
Fulcrum
Fulcrum is betting its whole map stack on Esri, with a hard Google Maps cutoff on September 1.
Holistics
Holistics keeps fencing in the AI layer it spent the summer building.
See all distributions3 alternatives → · See all INBOmd alternatives →
Recent activity from distributions3 and INBOmd
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2h agodistributions3Empirical distributions, plus score and hessian generics ⚡
- 29d agodistributions3Maintenance moves to Achim Zeileis; moment calculations corrected
- 1mo agoINBOmdWatermark no longer prints NA when colophon fields are missing
- 1mo agoINBOmdDependency bump to the latest citeme and checklist
- 6mo agoINBOmdMissing subtitle restored in gitbook and EPUB colophon citations
- 10mo agodistributions3ggplot2 compatibility for the plotting functions
- 1y agodistributions3Poisson binomial distribution, with a normal-approximation fallback
- 2y agoINBOmdpdf_report() requires pandoc 3.1.8 or later
- 2y agoINBOmdWatermarks and separate colophons for internal reports
- 3y agoINBOmdStructured author metadata required; interactive report helpers added
- 3y agodistributions3is_discrete and is_continuous generics, plus elementwise type-safety
- 4y agodistributions3Extreme-value family, Erlang, and a plotting generic
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between distributions3 and INBOmd?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. distributions3 is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 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 distributions3 better than INBOmd?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. distributions3 is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 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 distributions3?
Top distributions3 alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "distributions3 alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/distributions3-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to INBOmd?
Top INBOmd alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "INBOmd alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/inbomd for the full list with editorial commentary on each.