EvoPhylo
EvoPhylo added BEAST2 alongside MrBayes, then went quiet for two years.
Comparison · Analytics
etn vs pecan
A side-by-side editorial comparison of etn and pecan — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
etn vs pecan: at a glance
What is etn?
etn stopped being an RStudio-server package and became something you can run anywhere.
etn is the R client for the European Tracking Network's acoustic telemetry database, maintained at INBO. The 3.0.0 release routes queries through an API served by the companion etnservice package, so the package no longer requires a session on the ETN RStudio server. Credentials moved out of a connection object and into .Renviron, and the data model was rescoped in 2.0.0 around tag_serial_number so acoustic work is one scope among several rather than the whole package.
What is pecan?
PEcAn v1.10 makes land-management events a first-class input and parallelises the whole SDA workflow
PEcAn is a workflow framework for ecosystem modelling — it standardises meteorological and initial-condition inputs, drives a set of coupled process models such as SIPNET, ED2, BioCro and LDNDC, and runs uncertainty analysis and state data assimilation over the results. Version 1.10.0 adds an events schema with validation and a SIPNET writer, so disturbance and management events can be declared in JSON and turned into model input, and runs the entire SDA workflow in parallel. It also adds CH4 and N2O to the standard variable table and an AmeriFlux meteorological ensemble path with ERA5 fallback.
etn vs pecan: editorial side-by-side
etn
0.0ANALYTICS
etn stopped being an RStudio-server package and became something you can run anywhere.
◆ Current state
etn is the R client for the European Tracking Network's acoustic telemetry database, maintained at INBO. The 3.0.0 release routes queries through an API served by the companion etnservice package, so the package no longer requires a session on the ETN RStudio server. Credentials moved out of a connection object and into .Renviron, and the data model was rescoped in 2.0.0 around tag_serial_number so acoustic work is one scope among several rather than the whole package.
◆ Where it's heading
Two arcs run in parallel: widening access, and making room for non-acoustic data. The access work has been deliberate — an API-backed beta in 2024, then a stable release that picks the transport automatically and checks that a local etnservice install matches the deployed one, because the same query returning different results by transport would be worse than requiring the server. The Darwin Core export added in 2.1.0 points the same outward direction, moving data to OBIS and GBIF instead of keeping it in the ETN silo.
◆ Prediction
The cpod scope named in the 2.0.0 notes is the most likely next addition, now that the naming and the API transport are both in place to carry it.
pecan
0.0ANALYTICS
PEcAn v1.10 makes land-management events a first-class input and parallelises the whole SDA workflow
◆ Current state
PEcAn is a workflow framework for ecosystem modelling — it standardises meteorological and initial-condition inputs, drives a set of coupled process models such as SIPNET, ED2, BioCro and LDNDC, and runs uncertainty analysis and state data assimilation over the results. Version 1.10.0 adds an events schema with validation and a SIPNET writer, so disturbance and management events can be declared in JSON and turned into model input, and runs the entire SDA workflow in parallel. It also adds CH4 and N2O to the standard variable table and an AmeriFlux meteorological ensemble path with ERA5 fallback.
◆ Where it's heading
Two directions are visible. The framework keeps widening what it can represent — more standard variables, more carbon pools in BADM-based initial conditions, more coupled models — and it keeps industrialising the parts that used to be manual, from automated package documentation to qsub job-array expansion to parallel assimilation. The events schema is the first of these that gives users a declarative input format rather than a function to call, which is a different kind of extension than adding another model coupling.
◆ Prediction
The events schema currently has one model writer, for SIPNET, so the obvious next step is writers for the other coupled models — otherwise the format only benefits a single backend of the several PEcAn drives.
Alternatives to etn and pecan
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 etn or pecan.
treespace
treespace ships once every year or two, and only when CRAN or a user forces it.
Rpath
Rpath 1.1.0 learns to read Ecopath's own files, easing migration off the desktop tool.
TAF
TAF keeps turning ICES stock assessments into reproducible, dependency-pinned projects.
parallelDist
parallelDist is in pure preservation mode — one build fix every few years.
cairo
Cairo finally catches R's graphics engine, all the way to GE API 16.
Recent activity from etn and pecan
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 5mo agoetnetn runs off the ETN RStudio server via the etnservice API ⚡
- 6mo agoetnData model rescoped; acoustic becomes one named scope
- 6mo agoetnwrite_dwc() exports telemetry as Darwin Core for OBIS and GBIF
- 6mo agoetndepth_in_meters added to acoustic detections
- 6mo agoetnwrite_dwc() fixes for uppercase project codes
- 6mo agoetnNA formatting and duplicate receiver ID fixes
- 7mo agopecanEvents schema, parallel SDA workflow, CH4 and N2O standard variables ⚡
- 1y agopecanAutomated pkgdown docs for all packages; qsub job-array support
- 1y agopecanLDNDC coupling, soilgrids carbon extraction, SDA observation prep
- 1y agopecanPFT-specific sensitivity analysis and BioCro 1.0 support
- 1y agopecanBioCro output renamed to PEcAn standard names; RCE fix
- 1y agopecanPEcAn.utils namespace cleanup; deprecated model2netcdf removed
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between etn and pecan?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. etn and pecan 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 etn better than pecan?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. etn and pecan 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 etn?
Top etn alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "etn alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/etn-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to pecan?
Top pecan alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "pecan alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/pecan-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.