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Comparison · Infra & APIs
ggprism vs mdatools
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ggprism and mdatools — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
ggprism vs mdatools: at a glance
What is ggprism?
A Prism-styled ggplot2 theme in maintenance, now surviving ggplot2 4.0.
ggprism reproduces GraphPad Prism's look inside ggplot2 through themes, axis guides, palettes and p-value brackets, and has been feature-stable since its 2021 CRAN debut. The only release in the recent window is a compatibility pass for ggplot2 v4.0.0. The rest of the visible history is the original 2021 launch sequence.
What is mdatools?
mdatools spun out its cross-validation method, then came back for three-way data.
mdatools is a long-running chemometrics package covering PCA, PLS regression, SIMCA and DD-SIMCA classification, MCR resolution and a large spectral preprocessing framework. Its releases are infrequent and each one tends to carry one substantive idea plus a handful of fixes. The June release opens a direction the package had not previously taken: DD-SIMCA classification of three-way data, through PARAFAC and Tucker decompositions.
ggprism vs mdatools: editorial side-by-side
ggprism
0.0INFRA · APIS
A Prism-styled ggplot2 theme in maintenance, now surviving ggplot2 4.0.
◆ Current state
ggprism reproduces GraphPad Prism's look inside ggplot2 through themes, axis guides, palettes and p-value brackets, and has been feature-stable since its 2021 CRAN debut. The only release in the recent window is a compatibility pass for ggplot2 v4.0.0. The rest of the visible history is the original 2021 launch sequence.
◆ Where it's heading
The package now moves on upstream's clock rather than its own: releases appear when ggplot2 makes a breaking change, and the content is deprecation cleanup and test repair. The 2021 entries show where the capability surface was set, and it has not widened since.
◆ Prediction
The next release is most likely another ggplot2 compatibility pass rather than new guides or palettes.
mdatools
0.0INFRA · APIS
mdatools spun out its cross-validation method, then came back for three-way data.
◆ Current state
mdatools is a long-running chemometrics package covering PCA, PLS regression, SIMCA and DD-SIMCA classification, MCR resolution and a large spectral preprocessing framework. Its releases are infrequent and each one tends to carry one substantive idea plus a handful of fixes. The June release opens a direction the package had not previously taken: DD-SIMCA classification of three-way data, through PARAFAC and Tucker decompositions.
◆ Where it's heading
The shape of the package has been managed deliberately rather than allowed to sprawl. Procrustes cross-validation grew large enough to warrant its own package and was moved out to pcv in 0.14.0; preprocessing was consolidated in 0.12.0 into a composable prep() framework rather than a set of loose functions. Around that, the recurring work is numerical: a more stable SIMPLS implementation, cross-validation rewritten to accept user-supplied segment indices, prep.savgol() and prep.alsbasecorr() rewritten for speed, and now the baseline iteration default raised to match the web applications the maintainer also runs.
◆ Prediction
Three-way DD-SIMCA arrives with two decompositions and no companion regression or resolution methods for multiway data, so extending the multiway path to the rest of the toolkit is the obvious follow-up. The alignment of defaults with the maintainer's web applications suggests those two codebases will keep being reconciled.
Alternatives to ggprism and mdatools
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 ggprism or mdatools.
ggalign
Composable aligned layouts, rebuilt on S7 while ggplot2 4.0 lands underneath.
prioritizr
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jSDM
Joint species distribution models in Gibbs-sampled C++, quiet since 2023.
rsofun
An ecosystem model starts tracking carbon isotopes and land-use change.
usmap
Ten years in, US mapping splits its data out and finally adds Puerto Rico.
See all ggprism alternatives → · See all mdatools alternatives →
Recent activity from ggprism and mdatools
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agomdatoolsDD-SIMCA classification arrives for three-way data ⚡
- 5mo agomdatoolsv. 0.15.0
- 1y agoggprismggplot2 4.0 compatibility fixes for theme_prism()
- 2y agomdatoolsData frames converted to matrices automatically for model training
- 3y agomdatoolscv.scope lets centering and scaling follow the global or local set
- 3y agomdatoolsProcrustes cross-validation moves out to its own pcv package ⚡
- 3y agomdatoolsgetRegcoeffs() fixed for unscaled models; ipls() gains a full mode
- 5y agoggprismVignette figure and test fixes ahead of ggplot2 3.4
- 5y agoggprismadd_pvalue() accepts more input column layouts
- 5y agoggprismFirst CRAN submission after the GitHub release
- 5y agoggprismInitial release: Prism themes, guides, palettes, p-value brackets ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ggprism and mdatools?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ggprism and mdatools 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 ggprism better than mdatools?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggprism and mdatools 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 Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to ggprism?
Top ggprism alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggprism alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggprism for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to mdatools?
Top mdatools alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "mdatools alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mdatools for the full list with editorial commentary on each.