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flashlight vs moderndive
A side-by-side editorial comparison of flashlight and moderndive — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
flashlight vs moderndive: at a glance
What is flashlight?
flashlight hit 1.0 by giving away its SHAP feature and making most of its API internal.
flashlight computes model-agnostic interpretability output — variable importance, partial dependence and effect profiles, breakdown plots — for fitted models in R. Version 1.0.0 in October 2025 executed a contraction announced two years earlier: add_shap() is deprecated in favour of the separate kernelshap and fastshap packages, type = "shap" is gone from every light_* function that accepted it, and eight previously exported helpers became internal. The release also restored compatibility with ggplot2 v4.
What is moderndive?
The ModernDive teaching package learns to render inside the browser that runs its own textbook
moderndive supplies the datasets, regression helpers and ggplot geoms used by the ModernDive introductory statistics textbook. Its release history is mostly dataset accumulation — much of it contributed by students in batches — punctuated by occasional function work. The latest release is different: it fixes View() so it renders inside webR, the in-browser R that powers the book's live exercises, and reworks the regression helpers to survive in-formula transformations.
flashlight vs moderndive: editorial side-by-side
flashlight
0.0ANALYTICS
flashlight hit 1.0 by giving away its SHAP feature and making most of its API internal.
◆ Current state
flashlight computes model-agnostic interpretability output — variable importance, partial dependence and effect profiles, breakdown plots — for fitted models in R. Version 1.0.0 in October 2025 executed a contraction announced two years earlier: add_shap() is deprecated in favour of the separate kernelshap and fastshap packages, type = "shap" is gone from every light_* function that accepted it, and eight previously exported helpers became internal. The release also restored compatibility with ggplot2 v4.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is narrowing rather than growing, and doing it on a published schedule — 0.9.0 listed the breaking changes, 1.0.0 applied them essentially unchanged. Handing SHAP computation to dedicated packages leaves flashlight as an effects-and-profiles visualization layer rather than an all-purpose interpretability toolkit. Removing the ability to rename result columns via options() points the same way: fewer configuration surfaces, a smaller contract to maintain.
◆ Prediction
With the deprecation list from 0.9.0 now fully applied, the next releases most likely remove the functions currently deprecated rather than adding capability, and continue tracking ggplot2. The entries show no new analysis method in progress.
moderndive
2.5ANALYTICS
The ModernDive teaching package learns to render inside the browser that runs its own textbook
◆ Current state
moderndive supplies the datasets, regression helpers and ggplot geoms used by the ModernDive introductory statistics textbook. Its release history is mostly dataset accumulation — much of it contributed by students in batches — punctuated by occasional function work. The latest release is different: it fixes View() so it renders inside webR, the in-browser R that powers the book's live exercises, and reworks the regression helpers to survive in-formula transformations.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is following the textbook's second edition into the browser. webR has no pandoc, so the DT htmlwidget path the package relied on cannot produce the self-contained HTML the notebook cell needs, and the auto-print path was gated behind interactive() being false — meaning students working through the live exercises saw an explanatory message where a table should have been. Building a static HTML table and pushing it through webR's viewer hook is a small change with a direct effect on whether the book's interactive mode works at all.
◆ Prediction
With the book's v2 datasets landed and the browser rendering path fixed, the remaining friction is most likely in other functions that assume a desktop R session.
Alternatives to flashlight and moderndive
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 flashlight or moderndive.
cfbfastr
College football's open data client hit v2 — and now reports how many API calls you have left.
rnpn
The USA phenology data client rebuilt its entire stack and stopped handing users -9999 as a number.
GeneNMF
GeneNMF rebuilt how it derives meta-programs, changing every result it had produced.
rempsyc
Publication-ready psychology tables and plots, tracking APA style as closely as the software allows.
sdsfun
A spatial-statistics utility package exists to be depended on, and is built accordingly.
See all flashlight alternatives → · See all moderndive alternatives →
Recent activity from flashlight and moderndive
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 12d agomoderndiveView() renders in webR; regression helpers survive formula transforms
- 10mo agoflashlightSHAP handed off to kernelshap as the public API shrinks ⚡
- 1y agomoderndiveDatasets and tidy_summary() for the second edition
- 2y agomoderndiveAlmond and flight datasets for the inference chapters
- 3y agoflashlightBreaking changes for 1.0.0 announced two years ahead
- 4y agomoderndiveTen student-curated teaching datasets
- 4y agoflashlightMaintenance release covering package generation
- 4y agomoderndiveAlaska flights subset added
- 5y agomoderndiveCleaner regression tables and an explicit conf.level argument
- 5y agoflashlightggpubr dependency removed
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between flashlight and moderndive?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. moderndive is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is flashlight better than moderndive?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. moderndive is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to flashlight?
Top flashlight alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "flashlight alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/flashlight for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to moderndive?
Top moderndive alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "moderndive alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/moderndive for the full list with editorial commentary on each.