broom.helpers
After eleven quiet months, the tidier under gtsummary is back to absorbing model classes.
Comparison · Analytics
ggquiver vs vecvec
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ggquiver and vecvec — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
ggquiver vs vecvec: at a glance
What is ggquiver?
ggquiver is awake again, fixing arrow scaling that quietly misread irregular data.
A small ggplot2 extension for quiver and vector-field plots. The 0.3.x line in late 2021 made arrows behave outside plain Cartesian coordinates; after a four-year gap, 0.4.0 made them honour scale transformations and exposed grid::arrow() styling. 0.5.0 continues in correctness: automatic vecsize grid detection no longer rescales arrows wrongly on irregularly spaced data like GPS coordinates, an undetectable grid warns rather than errors, and legend keys now show an arrowhead.
What is vecvec?
A lazy vector container keeps closing the gaps where it quietly materialised anyway.
vecvec provides an R class that holds multiple vectors as one logical vector without copying them together, for cases where concatenating would be wasteful. The 1.0.0 rewrite moved the class off vctrs onto S7 while keeping user-facing code working, and added matrix and array behaviour. Since then the work has been about whether the abstraction actually saves anything: 1.3.0 makes duplicated(), equality proxies, casting and array formatting compute slot-wise instead of materialising, and adds vecvec_mapply() to apply a function across several vecvecs at once.
ggquiver vs vecvec: editorial side-by-side
ggquiver
2.5ANALYTICS
ggquiver is awake again, fixing arrow scaling that quietly misread irregular data.
◆ Current state
A small ggplot2 extension for quiver and vector-field plots. The 0.3.x line in late 2021 made arrows behave outside plain Cartesian coordinates; after a four-year gap, 0.4.0 made them honour scale transformations and exposed grid::arrow() styling. 0.5.0 continues in correctness: automatic vecsize grid detection no longer rescales arrows wrongly on irregularly spaced data like GPS coordinates, an undetectable grid warns rather than errors, and legend keys now show an arrowhead.
◆ 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, and now the automatic sizing heuristic itself. The two 0.4.0/0.5.0 releases inside seven months suggest the four-year gap was dormancy rather than abandonment, and the work has shifted from integration gaps to the package's own inference: 0.5.0 is the first release to treat automatic grid detection as something that can be wrong rather than merely absent. The changelog remains entirely correctness and integration; there is still no sign of new plot types.
◆ Prediction
The entries support a narrow read: further releases will likely keep hardening vecsize inference and closing ggplot2 integration gaps as users report them. Two releases in seven months hint the cadence has resumed, but one gap of four years makes that weak evidence.
vecvec
2.5ANALYTICS
A lazy vector container keeps closing the gaps where it quietly materialised anyway.
◆ Current state
vecvec provides an R class that holds multiple vectors as one logical vector without copying them together, for cases where concatenating would be wasteful. The 1.0.0 rewrite moved the class off vctrs onto S7 while keeping user-facing code working, and added matrix and array behaviour. Since then the work has been about whether the abstraction actually saves anything: 1.3.0 makes duplicated(), equality proxies, casting and array formatting compute slot-wise instead of materialising, and adds vecvec_mapply() to apply a function across several vecvecs at once.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc runs from proving the idea to making it cheap, and 1.3.0 is the widest pass yet at the second half. Early releases established constructors and vctrs dispatch; 1.0.0 rebuilt the internals on S7; the three releases since have worked through the operations that were quietly defeating the point — printing, duplicate detection, casting, equality — and made each compute on storage slots rather than elements. ALTREP detection has moved from parsing .Internal(inspect()) output to a C-level check, the same work on a firmer footing. The other visible thread is a widening apply surface: vec_apply() per vector, now vecvec_mapply() across several.
◆ Prediction
With the main vctrs operations converted to slot-wise computation, the remaining materialisation points are the natural next target; the entries name no specific one, and the internal structure reserved at 1.0.0 still leaves room for the faster special-case representations flagged then.
Alternatives to ggquiver and vecvec
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 vecvec.
OpenHouse
OpenHouse starts adding per-column defaults while still closing silent-failure holes.
Distributions.jl
Julia's distribution library keeps filing down the edges where sampling meets array types
Power BI
Power BI's monthly grind: authoring defaults, DAX documentation, and mobile finally catching up.
haze
Mesh interpolation drops its custom fork dependency and sheds weight.
scimesh
A mesh renderer grows a scene graph and an exit route into glTF.
See all ggquiver alternatives → · See all vecvec alternatives →
Recent activity from ggquiver and vecvec
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agovecvecBatched mapply arrives; core operations stop materialising
- 1d agoggquiverArrow scaling fixed for irregular grids; legend keys gain arrowheads
- 1mo agovecvecExtension packages can register their own ptype and cast methods
- 1mo agovecvecALTREP vectors survive construction and printing intact
- 3mo agovecvecThe class is rebuilt on S7, with a new internal representation ⚡
- 4mo agovecvecMissing value handling fixed for is.na()
- 6mo agoggquiverArrows respect scale transformations and grid arrow styling
- 11mo agovecvecArithmetic and per-vector apply arrive
- 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 vecvec?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. ggquiver and vecvec are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 2.5 vs 2.5, 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 vecvec?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggquiver and vecvec are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 2.5 vs 2.5, 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 vecvec?
Top vecvec alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "vecvec alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/vecvec for the full list with editorial commentary on each.