rnaturalearth
rnaturalearth finished its sp exit and is now optimising how the data actually arrives.
Comparison · Analytics
gganimate vs mlr3viz
A side-by-side editorial comparison of gganimate and mlr3viz — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:ggplot2visualization
gganimate vs mlr3viz: at a glance
What is gganimate?
gganimate is in caretaker mode, tracking ggplot2 and little else
gganimate animates ggplot2 graphics, and its recent releases are almost entirely about staying compatible with ggplot2 itself. The last two releases exist to adapt to ggplot2 v4; the substantive work sits back in 1.0.9, which fixed transition bugs and moved internals onto vctrs, cli and lifecycle.
What is mlr3viz?
mlr3viz keeps the ecosystem's plots working while the plots themselves move out
mlr3viz supplies autoplot methods across mlr3 objects — learners, resample and benchmark results, tuning instances, ensemble feature-selection results. Recent releases are mostly defensive: suppressing ggplot2::fortify() warnings on ROC and PRC curves, pinning legend order so plots are deterministic across ggplot2 environments, and tracking mlr3 1.7.2. A visible piece of scope also left, with the LearnerSurvCoxPH plot moving to mlr3proba.
gganimate vs mlr3viz: editorial side-by-side
gganimate
0.0ANALYTICS
gganimate is in caretaker mode, tracking ggplot2 and little else
◆ Current state
gganimate animates ggplot2 graphics, and its recent releases are almost entirely about staying compatible with ggplot2 itself. The last two releases exist to adapt to ggplot2 v4; the substantive work sits back in 1.0.9, which fixed transition bugs and moved internals onto vctrs, cli and lifecycle.
◆ Where it's heading
Development is reactive rather than directional: the package follows ggplot2's internal changes and fixes transition edge cases as they are reported. Renderer work — ragg support, dropping the png dependency for gifski — has been the only place new capability appeared, and that was several years ago.
◆ Prediction
The next release is most likely another ggplot2 compatibility pass; nothing in these entries points to new transition types or renderers.
mlr3viz
2.5ANALYTICS
mlr3viz keeps the ecosystem's plots working while the plots themselves move out
◆ Current state
mlr3viz supplies autoplot methods across mlr3 objects — learners, resample and benchmark results, tuning instances, ensemble feature-selection results. Recent releases are mostly defensive: suppressing ggplot2::fortify() warnings on ROC and PRC curves, pinning legend order so plots are deterministic across ggplot2 environments, and tracking mlr3 1.7.2. A visible piece of scope also left, with the LearnerSurvCoxPH plot moving to mlr3proba.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is being narrowed toward generic plotting infrastructure while learner-specific plots migrate to the packages that own those learners. What it does add is access rather than new charts — passing parameters through to precrec::autoplot(), better hints when the wrong autoplot type is requested, and a confidence-interval plot for mlr3inferr. Determinism across ggplot2 versions has become a recurring concern, which is what happens when a visualization package is depended on by documentation and tests.
◆ Prediction
Following the Cox proportional-hazards precedent, further learner-specific plots are likely to move to their owning packages, leaving mlr3viz with the cross-cutting result objects.
Alternatives to gganimate and mlr3viz
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 gganimate or mlr3viz.
writexl
writexl spent nine years refusing to do formatting, then shipped all of it in 2.0.0.
rgbif
rgbif is steadily pushing users off paged searching and onto real downloads.
rstanarm
rstanarm is community-maintained now, tracking Stan and lme4 rather than adding models.
taxa
taxa started a ground-up rewrite in 2021 and has published almost nothing since.
rotl
rotl's whole release history is keeping name matching honest against a moving taxonomy.
See all gganimate alternatives → · See all mlr3viz alternatives →
Recent activity from gganimate and mlr3viz
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 18d agomlr3vizmlr3viz 0.11.1 pins legend order for deterministic plots
- 5mo agomlr3vizmlr3viz 0.11.0 quiets ggplot2 fortify warnings on ROC curves
- 11mo agogganimateLabel rendering fix for ggplot2 v4
- 1y agomlr3vizmlr3viz 0.10.1 passes plotting parameters through to precrec
- 1y agogganimateAdapted for the upcoming ggplot2 release
- 1y agomlr3vizmlr3viz 0.10.0 adds a LearnerSurvCoxPH plot
- 2y agomlr3vizmlr3viz 0.9.0 adds EnsembleFSResult plots
- 2y agomlr3vizmlr3viz 0.8.0 tracks paradox 1.0.0
- 2y agogganimateTransition fixes and a move onto vctrs, cli and lifecycle
- 3y agogganimateTransition and ffmpeg detection bug fixes
- 5y agogganimateSupport for the ragg PNG device
- 6y agogganimategifski rendering no longer needs the png package
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between gganimate and mlr3viz?
Both compete on the same themes — ggplot2, visualization — within Analytics. mlr3viz 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 gganimate better than mlr3viz?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. mlr3viz 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 gganimate?
Top gganimate alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "gganimate alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/gganimate for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to mlr3viz?
Top mlr3viz alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "mlr3viz alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mlr3viz for the full list with editorial commentary on each.