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Comparison · Analytics
epiflows vs textplot
A side-by-side editorial comparison of epiflows and textplot — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:maintenance
epiflows vs textplot: at a glance
What is epiflows?
epiflows has shipped four releases in eight years, none of which changed the code.
epiflows predicts the spread of infectious disease along population flows between locations, and it is effectively dormant. The whole visible history spans 2018 to 2026 in four entries: the first CRAN release, a Zenodo archival tag, a Roxygen patch whose notes state the functionality is unchanged, and a 2026 release replacing deprecated ggplot2 and tibble calls. No entry describes new epidemiological capability.
What is textplot?
A bnosac plotting utility in maintenance mode, shipping once every few years
textplot is the visualisation member of the bnosac NLP family, providing plot methods for dependency parses, biterm topic clusters, co-occurrence graphs, correlation lines and word embeddings. The function surface has been stable since 0.2.0 added textplot_embedding_2d in 2021. The 2026 release touches only documentation links and a vignette guard.
epiflows vs textplot: editorial side-by-side
epiflows
0.0ANALYTICS
epiflows has shipped four releases in eight years, none of which changed the code.
◆ Current state
epiflows predicts the spread of infectious disease along population flows between locations, and it is effectively dormant. The whole visible history spans 2018 to 2026 in four entries: the first CRAN release, a Zenodo archival tag, a Roxygen patch whose notes state the functionality is unchanged, and a 2026 release replacing deprecated ggplot2 and tibble calls. No entry describes new epidemiological capability.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is being kept installable rather than developed. The one recent release is dependency maintenance contributed from outside, which is the pattern for RECON-era epidemiology packages that have outlived their original project funding. Two separate entries are both labelled version 0.2.1, so even the version history is not a reliable guide to what changed.
◆ Prediction
Any further releases will most likely be more deprecation cleanup to keep the package on CRAN; there is nothing in the record suggesting active development has resumed.
textplot
0.0ANALYTICS
A bnosac plotting utility in maintenance mode, shipping once every few years
◆ Current state
textplot is the visualisation member of the bnosac NLP family, providing plot methods for dependency parses, biterm topic clusters, co-occurrence graphs, correlation lines and word embeddings. The function surface has been stable since 0.2.0 added textplot_embedding_2d in 2021. The 2026 release touches only documentation links and a vignette guard.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a settled package, not a developing one. Releases since 0.2.0 have been reactive: a topic-assignment bug, a layout argument, and now cleanup after the archival of a dependency it linked to. The cadence — four years between 0.2.2 and 0.2.3 — tracks CRAN housekeeping on the wider bnosac stack rather than any roadmap of its own.
◆ Prediction
Expect the same pattern: the next release will most likely be another CRAN-compliance pass triggered by a change in udpipe, BTM or another sibling package, rather than a new textplot_* function.
Alternatives to epiflows and textplot
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 epiflows or textplot.
epikit
epikit narrows to field-epidemiology helpers, handing proportions to a sibling package
SimInf
SimInf 10.0 turns an epidemic simulator into a tool that fits models to real time series
mutagen
A young package porting Stata's egen row-wise helpers to the tidyverse, one function per release
broman
A statistician's personal toolbox, growing one plotting utility at a time
qtl
R/qtl is in pure custodial mode: every recent release answers a compiler, not a user
See all epiflows alternatives → · See all textplot alternatives →
Recent activity from epiflows and textplot
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 5mo agoepiflowsDeprecated ggplot2 and tibble calls replaced
- 6mo agotextplotDrop link to archived ggalt, guard vignette model download
- 3y agoepiflowsRoxygen patch for CRAN checks
- 4y agotextplotDependency-parse plots gain a layout argument
- 4y agotextplotFix biterm topic assignment in cluster plots
- 4y agotextplotAdds 2D embedding plots
- 5y agotextplotMake example conditional on udpipe availability
- 6y agotextplotPlot functions become generic; igraph moved to Suggests
- 7y agoepiflowsFirst Zenodo archival tag
- 8y agoepiflowsFirst CRAN release
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between epiflows and textplot?
Both compete on the same themes — maintenance — within Analytics. epiflows and textplot 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 epiflows better than textplot?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. epiflows and textplot 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 epiflows?
Top epiflows alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "epiflows alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/epiflows-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to textplot?
Top textplot alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "textplot alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/textplot for the full list with editorial commentary on each.