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Single-cell batch correction that learned to use cell labels, then spent three releases chasing Seurat.
Comparison · Analytics
ggquiver vs sdsfun
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ggquiver and sdsfun — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
ggquiver vs sdsfun: at a glance
What is ggquiver?
ggquiver returned after four years to make arrows respect ggplot's own scales.
A small ggplot2 extension for quiver and vector-field plots. The 0.3.x line in late 2021 was about making arrows behave correctly outside plain Cartesian coordinates — non-Cartesian coordinate systems, ggmap backgrounds, arrow sizing and angles. Then nothing for over four years, until 0.4.0 made arrows honour scale transformations on the x and y aesthetics and exposed grid::arrow()'s appearance options.
What is sdsfun?
A spatial-statistics utility package exists to be depended on, and is built accordingly.
sdsfun collects spatial data science utilities — neighbour lists, spatial constrained clustering, discretization, dummy variable generation, geographical detector statistics and projection helpers — with the computationally heavy parts implemented in Rcpp. It was assembled quickly across late 2024, adding a function set roughly every three weeks, and has slowed since to a couple of releases a year. The most recent work is corrective: no longer initializing the RNG state at load, fixing matrix inputs misread as vectors, and clearing an Armadillo deprecation.
ggquiver vs sdsfun: editorial side-by-side
ggquiver
0.0ANALYTICS
ggquiver returned after four years to make arrows respect ggplot's own scales.
◆ Current state
A small ggplot2 extension for quiver and vector-field plots. The 0.3.x line in late 2021 was about making arrows behave correctly outside plain Cartesian coordinates — non-Cartesian coordinate systems, ggmap backgrounds, arrow sizing and angles. Then nothing for over four years, until 0.4.0 made arrows honour scale transformations on the x and y aesthetics and exposed grid::arrow()'s appearance options.
◆ Where it's heading
The consistent theme across both eras is deferring to ggplot2 rather than drawing on top of it: coordinate systems first, then scale transformations, then arrow styling handed to grid. Development is episodic — years pass, then a release that closes the gap between what the geom does and what a user expects from any other layer. The changelog is entirely correctness and integration work; there is no sign of the package growing new plot types.
◆ Prediction
The entries only support a narrow read: further releases will likely keep closing ggplot2 integration gaps as they are reported, but the four-year gap means cadence is not predictable from this feed.
sdsfun
0.0ANALYTICS
A spatial-statistics utility package exists to be depended on, and is built accordingly.
◆ Current state
sdsfun collects spatial data science utilities — neighbour lists, spatial constrained clustering, discretization, dummy variable generation, geographical detector statistics and projection helpers — with the computationally heavy parts implemented in Rcpp. It was assembled quickly across late 2024, adding a function set roughly every three weeks, and has slowed since to a couple of releases a year. The most recent work is corrective: no longer initializing the RNG state at load, fixing matrix inputs misread as vectors, and clearing an Armadillo deprecation.
◆ Where it's heading
This is infrastructure for a family of packages rather than an end-user tool, and the changelog says so directly — functions were added to support gdverse and sesp, and moran_test was migrated in from geocomplexity. That migration pattern is the defining move: capability consolidates here so the downstream packages can share it instead of each carrying its own copy. Growth has slowed as that consolidation completed, leaving correctness and dependency upkeep.
◆ Prediction
Given the package moves when its dependents need something, the next release most likely brings in another shared function or responds to a downstream requirement rather than following its own plan. Armadillo and CRAN check changes remain the reliable source of maintenance work.
Alternatives to ggquiver and sdsfun
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 ggquiver or sdsfun.
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 ggquiver alternatives → · See all sdsfun alternatives →
Recent activity from ggquiver and sdsfun
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 6mo agoggquiverArrows respect scale transformations and grid arrow styling
- 10mo agosdsfunPackage load stops touching the RNG state
- 1y agosdsfunUnified partial correlation testing and head/tails discretization
- 1y agosdsfunMissing-value handling added to linear trend removal
- 1y agosdsfunCovariate-based detrending and long-to-matrix spatial reshaping
- 1y agosdsfunSpatially constrained hierarchical clustering and SPADE estimation
- 1y agosdsfunFast geodetector q-value estimator added
- 4y agoggquiverArrow scaling and centered-arrow angle fixes
- 4y agoggquiverFix for resized vectors via vecsize
- 4y agoggquiverNon-Cartesian coordinates and ggmap backgrounds supported
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ggquiver and sdsfun?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ggquiver and sdsfun 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 ggquiver better than sdsfun?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggquiver and sdsfun 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 ggquiver?
Top ggquiver alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggquiver alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggquiver for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to sdsfun?
Top sdsfun alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "sdsfun alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/sdsfun for the full list with editorial commentary on each.