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Comparison · Infra & APIs

forestploter vs Greenbone Vulnerability Manager

A side-by-side editorial comparison of forestploter and Greenbone Vulnerability Manager — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

forestploter vs Greenbone Vulnerability Manager: at a glance

FeatureforestploterGreenbone Vulnerability Manager
SectorInfra & APIsInfra & APIs
Velocity score0.06.3
Sparks · 30d01
Top themesdata-visualization, clinical-trials, forest-plots, meta-analysisvulnerability management, web application scanning, gmp protocol, report modeling
Last editorial update1h ago11d ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is forestploter?

A forest plot package that keeps handing users control of one more graphical detail.

forestploter draws forest plots where the layout is driven by the data frame itself, so text columns and confidence intervals sit in the same grid. The theme function has become the package's centre of gravity: it now controls graphical parameters for titles, legends, axis, arrow labels, footnotes, and reference lines, with multi-column and row-order legend controls added most recently. Two releases shipped nine minutes apart in April 2026 after a two-year gap, deprecating some theme parameters, removing inter-cell gaps, and improving tick breaks.

Read the full forestploter trajectory →

What is Greenbone Vulnerability Manager?

Greenbone's scanner daemon is growing a web-application scanning class beside its network roots.

gvmd releases every week or two, and the changelog splits cleanly in three: a sustained build-out of web application scanning, a rewrite of how reports are modeled and exported, and a long tail of memory-management fixes in the C core. Recent versions added web application scanner preferences, scanner verification, and a Web Application VT subtype with a database migration. The report work moved from ad-hoc XML toward a structured report model addressable through new GMP commands.

Read the full Greenbone Vulnerability Manager trajectory →

forestploter vs Greenbone Vulnerability Manager: editorial side-by-side

F
forestploter
INFRA · APIS
0.0

A forest plot package that keeps handing users control of one more graphical detail.

◆ Current state

forestploter draws forest plots where the layout is driven by the data frame itself, so text columns and confidence intervals sit in the same grid. The theme function has become the package's centre of gravity: it now controls graphical parameters for titles, legends, axis, arrow labels, footnotes, and reference lines, with multi-column and row-order legend controls added most recently. Two releases shipped nine minutes apart in April 2026 after a two-year gap, deprecating some theme parameters, removing inter-cell gaps, and improving tick breaks.

◆ Where it's heading

The direction has been consistent for four years: whatever a user might want to restyle eventually becomes an argument. Point size stopped being transformed, cell height adjustment was removed as unwanted, legends gained size, column, and fill-order control, and vertical lines learned to extend the full plot height and to draw beneath the whiskers. The one structural move was 1.1.0, which let callers supply their own confidence-interval and summary drawing functions — turning a fixed renderer into an extensible one. Everything since has been the arguments that extensibility did not cover.

◆ Prediction

The latest release deprecates theme parameters rather than adding them, which suggests the next one consolidates the theme surface that has grown for four years rather than extending it further.

G6.3

Greenbone's scanner daemon is growing a web-application scanning class beside its network roots.

◆ Current state

gvmd releases every week or two, and the changelog splits cleanly in three: a sustained build-out of web application scanning, a rewrite of how reports are modeled and exported, and a long tail of memory-management fixes in the C core. Recent versions added web application scanner preferences, scanner verification, and a Web Application VT subtype with a database migration. The report work moved from ad-hoc XML toward a structured report model addressable through new GMP commands.

◆ Where it's heading

Greenbone is widening what gvmd can orchestrate. Network and container scanning were the existing surface; web application scanning is being brought to parity, with its own VT class, preferences, validation, and verification path. In parallel the GMP protocol is gaining first-class report retrieval commands, which makes report data consumable by tooling rather than only renderable. The bug-fix stream is dominated by frees and cleanup in long-lived report paths, the signature of a codebase under memory pressure at scale.

◆ Prediction

Web Application VTs now have a subtype, a migration, and scanner verification, but the audit and scan report commands were added separately; expect the report model work to fold web application results into the same structured retrieval path rather than leaving a parallel one.

Alternatives to forestploter and Greenbone Vulnerability Manager

Other Infra & APIs 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 forestploter or Greenbone Vulnerability Manager.

See all forestploter alternatives → · See all Greenbone Vulnerability Manager alternatives →

Recent activity from forestploter and Greenbone Vulnerability Manager

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 16d agoGreenbone Vulnerability Manageropenvasd library bumped to 23.9
  2. 16d agoGreenbone Vulnerability ManagerGMP gains a get_audit_report_hosts command
  3. 21d agoGreenbone Vulnerability ManagerWeb Application VTs become a first-class scan type
  4. 29d agoGreenbone Vulnerability ManagerStructured report model and the get_scan_report command
  5. 1mo agoGreenbone Vulnerability ManagerPer-object asset permissions and report-script trust checks
  6. 1mo agoGreenbone Vulnerability ManagerAggregate grouping and family-name fixes
  7. 3mo agoforestploterTheme parameters deprecated; cell gaps removed, ticks improved
  8. 3mo agoforestploterMulti-column legends and full-height vertical lines
  9. 2y agoforestploterFull graphical control over titles, legends, axis and footnotes
  10. 2y agoforestploterTick digit calculation improved; automatic cell height removed
  11. 3y agoforestploterCustom CI and summary drawing functions; boxplots inside the plot
  12. 3y agoforestploterArbitrary grobs and math symbols can be placed in cells

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between forestploter and Greenbone Vulnerability Manager?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Greenbone Vulnerability Manager is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 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 forestploter better than Greenbone Vulnerability Manager?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Greenbone Vulnerability Manager is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to forestploter?

Top forestploter alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "forestploter alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/forestploter for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to Greenbone Vulnerability Manager?

Top Greenbone Vulnerability Manager alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Greenbone Vulnerability Manager alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/greenbone-gvmd for the full list with editorial commentary on each.