STACAS
Single-cell batch correction that learned to use cell labels, then spent three releases chasing Seurat.
Comparison · Analytics
firatheme vs reda
A side-by-side editorial comparison of firatheme and reda — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
firatheme vs reda: at a glance
What is firatheme?
firatheme woke up after four years and started fixing what ggplot2 changed underneath it.
A ggplot2 theme built around the Fira font family. It went quiet after the 2021 releases that made it pass R CMD check cleanly on all three platforms, then returned in December 2025 with a maintenance release solving a ggplot2 deprecation warning and cleaning up text alignment, followed six weeks later by a facet argument to theme_fira() that adds borders and a custom strip background so facet labels stay legible.
What is reda?
A mature recurrent-event toolkit in careful maintenance, shedding weight rather than adding surface.
reda provides nonparametric mean cumulative function estimation, gamma-frailty rate regression, and event-data simulation for recurrent-event survival analysis. The core API settled at 0.5.0 when Recur() replaced Survr() and the MCF internals moved to C++. Everything since has been consolidation: small argument additions, method completions, and CRAN hygiene.
firatheme vs reda: editorial side-by-side
firatheme
0.0ANALYTICS
firatheme woke up after four years and started fixing what ggplot2 changed underneath it.
◆ Current state
A ggplot2 theme built around the Fira font family. It went quiet after the 2021 releases that made it pass R CMD check cleanly on all three platforms, then returned in December 2025 with a maintenance release solving a ggplot2 deprecation warning and cleaning up text alignment, followed six weeks later by a facet argument to theme_fira() that adds borders and a custom strip background so facet labels stay legible.
◆ Where it's heading
The pattern of the revival is compatibility first, then the gap users actually hit. Faceting is the obvious hole in any hand-built theme — strip labels are where a theme that looks right on a single panel falls apart — and it arrived immediately after the deprecation cleanup, from a new contributor who has now made every recent change. Note the 0.2.4 release notes restate 0.2.3's contents rather than describing new work.
◆ Prediction
With faceting handled, further releases most likely track ggplot2 deprecations; the entries don't support a stronger claim than that.
reda
0.0ANALYTICS
A mature recurrent-event toolkit in careful maintenance, shedding weight rather than adding surface.
◆ Current state
reda provides nonparametric mean cumulative function estimation, gamma-frailty rate regression, and event-data simulation for recurrent-event survival analysis. The core API settled at 0.5.0 when Recur() replaced Survr() and the MCF internals moved to C++. Everything since has been consolidation: small argument additions, method completions, and CRAN hygiene.
◆ Where it's heading
The last three releases contain no new modelling capability at all — a dependency reshuffle, a test-example correction, and a print-order fix. The package is being kept installable and correct rather than extended. Its tightest coupling is to splines2, a sibling package from the same maintainer, which supplies the derivative machinery reda depends on.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued small-cadence CRAN-compliance releases tracking ggplot2 and splines2 changes. The entries show no in-progress feature work, so a substantive release would have to arrive without warning from this feed.
Alternatives to firatheme and reda
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 firatheme or reda.
ggtrace
A debugger for ggplot2's internals, hardening its grip as the internals it traces keep moving.
kde1d
A univariate density estimator that added zero-inflated data and reopened its C++ API to do it.
svines
Stationary vine copulas for time series, released in lockstep with the rest of Nagler's vine stack.
gghighlight
A single-purpose ggplot2 extension that has spent six years tracking ggplot2 instead of growing.
rtrek
A Star Trek data package that became a Memory Alpha web client and has been patching scrapers ever since.
See all firatheme alternatives → · See all reda alternatives →
Recent activity from firatheme and reda
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 7mo agofirathemeFaceting support with borders and custom strips
- 8mo agofirathemeText alignment cleanup and ggplot2 deprecation fix
- 11mo agoredaggplot2 and grDevices demoted to Suggests
- 1y agoredaTest example and documentation typo fixes
- 4y agoredasimEvent() gains a user-supplied rate bound
- 5y agofirathemeClean builds across all three platforms
- 5y agofirathemetheme_fira no longer returns a list
- 5y agoredasummary() method completes the Recur object
- 5y agoredaDerivatives sourced from splines2's deriv method
- 6y agoredaMCF estimates can now skip variance computation
- 6y agofirathemeInitial citable release
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between firatheme and reda?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. firatheme and reda 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 firatheme better than reda?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. firatheme and reda 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 firatheme?
Top firatheme alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "firatheme alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/firatheme for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to reda?
Top reda alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "reda alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/reda for the full list with editorial commentary on each.