fillpattern
Pattern fills for ggplot2, hardened against the ways users write sizes
Comparison · Analytics
ecodive vs vim
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ecodive and vim — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
ecodive vs vim: at a glance
What is ecodive?
ecodive rebuilt itself into a broad diversity-metric library, breaking as it went
ecodive computes alpha and beta diversity metrics for ecological and microbiome count data, including phylogenetic measures like Faith's PD and the UniFrac family. The 2.0.0 rewrite expanded it from a handful of metrics to roughly fourteen alpha and thirty beta measures while flipping the expected input orientation to samples-as-rows. Subsequent releases have been spent settling the normalisation interface that expansion exposed.
What is vim?
Six dormant years end with a correctness audit across VIM's entire imputation surface
VIM handles visualization and imputation of missing values in R, with kNN, hot-deck, iterative robust model-based imputation and matching-based methods. Development effectively stopped after 6.0.0 in 2020. Version 7.2.0 arrives in July 2026 as an explicitly framed correctness milestone: MI-properness warnings, ordered-factor preservation, a keep_all_columns option, list returns from irmi(mi>1), repairs to imputeRobust and imputeRobustChain, cellwise IRWLS and initial-weight fixes, and kNN and gowerD mixed-scaling corrections with a weightDist guard.
ecodive vs vim: editorial side-by-side
ecodive
0.0ANALYTICS
ecodive rebuilt itself into a broad diversity-metric library, breaking as it went
◆ Current state
ecodive computes alpha and beta diversity metrics for ecological and microbiome count data, including phylogenetic measures like Faith's PD and the UniFrac family. The 2.0.0 rewrite expanded it from a handful of metrics to roughly fourteen alpha and thirty beta measures while flipping the expected input orientation to samples-as-rows. Subsequent releases have been spent settling the normalisation interface that expansion exposed.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a package that made its breaking changes deliberately and in a cluster. After 2.0.0 reoriented input and removed the weighted parameter, 2.1.0 superseded rescale with norm, and 2.2.6 changed norm's default from percent to none and removed it from some beta functions entirely. That last one matters more than it reads: normalisation defaults silently change the numbers a metric returns, and the direction is toward making the user state their choice rather than inheriting one.
◆ Prediction
With the metric surface broad and the normalisation interface now explicit, expect the next releases to stabilise — documentation and edge-case handling around CLR and rarefaction rather than another interface break.
vim
0.0ANALYTICS
Six dormant years end with a correctness audit across VIM's entire imputation surface
◆ Current state
VIM handles visualization and imputation of missing values in R, with kNN, hot-deck, iterative robust model-based imputation and matching-based methods. Development effectively stopped after 6.0.0 in 2020. Version 7.2.0 arrives in July 2026 as an explicitly framed correctness milestone: MI-properness warnings, ordered-factor preservation, a keep_all_columns option, list returns from irmi(mi>1), repairs to imputeRobust and imputeRobustChain, cellwise IRWLS and initial-weight fixes, and kNN and gowerD mixed-scaling corrections with a weightDist guard.
◆ Where it's heading
The release notes describe an audit — Wave 1 plus tail — rather than a feature cycle, and the fixes cluster around statistical validity: whether multiple imputation is proper, whether factor ordering survives, whether distance scaling across mixed variable types is right. Those are the properties users cannot easily verify themselves, so a package correcting them after six years is implicitly restating what its earlier output was worth. The notes also name a forthcoming R Journal paper under the name vimpute, which points at a successor or companion identity.
◆ Prediction
The entries call this a stable reference point for a paper and refer to Wave 1, so a further audit wave is the most likely next release; the vimpute naming is worth watching but the entries do not say what it is.
Alternatives to ecodive and vim
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 ecodive or vim.
gcube
gcube's recent releases are all packaging metadata, not simulation code
cubist
The R port of Quinlan's Cubist gets reproducibility fixes, not new modelling
ggstats
ggstats keeps widening what a coefficient or Likert plot can be
simStateSpace
State-space data simulation for R, filled in one function at a time
rollama
rollama turns a local-LLM wrapper into an instrument for reproducible annotation
Recent activity from ecodive and vim
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agovimCorrectness audit fixes MI-properness, factor order and distance scaling
- 4mo agoecodiveNormalisation now defaults to none, with CLR zero warnings
- 7mo agoecodiveecodive 2.2.2
- 10mo agoecodiverescale superseded by norm; crash fixes after the 2.0.0 rewrite
- 10mo agoecodive2.0.0 expands to ~14 alpha and ~30 beta diversity metrics ⚡
- 6y agovimAdds ranger-based imputation, drops survey and GUI support
- 6y agovimAdds nine example datasets and splits help pages
- 6y agovimAdds matchImpute() and random-forest augmented kNN
- 6y agovimOrdered factor support and ordinal regression in irmi()
- 6y agovimBug fixes for kNN, hotdeck and irmi input handling
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ecodive and vim?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. ecodive and vim 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 ecodive better than vim?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ecodive and vim 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 ecodive?
Top ecodive alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ecodive alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ecodive for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to vim?
Top vim alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "vim alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/vim for the full list with editorial commentary on each.