tern.rbmi
Reference-based multiple imputation tables, shipping only what CRAN checks demand.
Comparison · Analytics
errors vs vegan
A side-by-side editorial comparison of errors and vegan — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
errors vs vegan: at a glance
What is errors?
errors keeps making uncertainty print the way each scientific field expects.
errors attaches uncertainty to numeric vectors and propagates it automatically through arithmetic, as part of the r-quantities family alongside units. The propagation core is settled; recent releases concentrate on presentation and integration — PDG rounding rules in 0.4.2, decimal support in parenthesis notation in 0.4.3, and ggplot2 deprecation tracking in 0.4.1 and 0.4.4.
What is vegan?
Community ecology's standard toolkit is retiring the functions a generation of scripts was built on.
vegan is the reference R package for ordination and diversity analysis in community ecology. The 2.7 line redesigned constrained ordination graphics from scratch, made adonis defunct in favor of adonis2, and moved permutation tests for partial RDA and db-RDA onto residualized predictors. The current 2.7-5 release is stabilization — parallel processing on Windows, ggvegan compatibility for tidy scores, and arrow label placement.
errors vs vegan: editorial side-by-side
errors
0.0ANALYTICS
errors keeps making uncertainty print the way each scientific field expects.
◆ Current state
errors attaches uncertainty to numeric vectors and propagates it automatically through arithmetic, as part of the r-quantities family alongside units. The propagation core is settled; recent releases concentrate on presentation and integration — PDG rounding rules in 0.4.2, decimal support in parenthesis notation in 0.4.3, and ggplot2 deprecation tracking in 0.4.1 and 0.4.4.
◆ Where it's heading
Two threads run through this history. One is formatting convergence: uncertainty has field-specific conventions, and the package has been absorbing them one contributed pull request at a time rather than imposing a single style. The other is keeping the errors class first-class everywhere R users work — vctrs methods for dplyr 1.0, a geom_errors() layer for ggplot2, missing-value and duplicate handling. Both are integration work, which is what a type-extension package mostly is.
◆ Prediction
Expect further formatting conventions to arrive as contributions, following PDG rounding and the decimals option, plus continued upkeep against ggplot2 aesthetic deprecations that have forced two of the last four releases.
vegan
0.0ANALYTICS
Community ecology's standard toolkit is retiring the functions a generation of scripts was built on.
◆ Current state
vegan is the reference R package for ordination and diversity analysis in community ecology. The 2.7 line redesigned constrained ordination graphics from scratch, made adonis defunct in favor of adonis2, and moved permutation tests for partial RDA and db-RDA onto residualized predictors. The current 2.7-5 release is stabilization — parallel processing on Windows, ggvegan compatibility for tidy scores, and arrow label placement.
◆ Where it's heading
Two long deprecation programs are converging. Plotting is being pushed out of the package: lattice functions are deprecated in favor of ggplot2 equivalents now living in ggvegan, a separate CRAN package, while vegan's own base graphics were rebuilt around independently configurable score types and pipe-based construction. Meanwhile the statistical core is being made internally consistent — add1 and drop1 no longer use different internal models, and summary is no longer an accepted route to ordination scores.
◆ Prediction
Expect the remaining lattice functions to go defunct and more plotting responsibility to shift to ggvegan, leaving vegan as the statistical engine with a thin base graphics layer.
Alternatives to errors and vegan
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 errors or vegan.
tern.mmrm
An MMRM tabulation package that has published nothing since its 2024 CRAN releases.
ggmagnify
A single-purpose ggplot2 inset tool, refining the same three arguments.
symengine
An R symbolic-maths binding whose changelog is really the C++ core's release notes.
gtfstools
gtfstools stopped guarding its own object model and started accepting everyone else's.
quantities
The glue package that makes R carry units and uncertainty through the same calculation.
See all errors alternatives → · See all vegan alternatives →
Recent activity from errors and vegan
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2mo agoveganParallel processing stabilized, especially on Windows
- 5mo agoveganLattice plotting deprecated as ggvegan reaches CRAN
- 10mo agoveganPartial RDA permutation tests adopt residualized predictors
- 1y agoerrorserrors 0.4.4 replaces deprecated geom_errorbarh()
- 1y agoveganOrdination graphics rebuilt and adonis made defunct ⚡
- 1y agoveganRelease chasing undefined behavior in a C function
- 1y agoerrorserrors 0.4.3 supports decimals in parenthesis notation
- 1y agoveganpca, ca and pco added for unconstrained ordination
- 2y agoerrorserrors 0.4.2 adds PDG rounding rules
- 2y agoerrorserrors 0.4.1 handles missing values, fixes na.rm
- 3y agoerrorserrors 0.4.0 adds geom_errors() for automatic errorbars
- 5y agoerrorserrors 0.3.6
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between errors and vegan?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. errors and vegan 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 errors better than vegan?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. errors and vegan 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 errors?
Top errors alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "errors alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/errors-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to vegan?
Top vegan alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "vegan alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/vegan-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.