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Comparison · Analytics
ggsci vs ichimoku
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ggsci and ichimoku — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
ggsci vs ichimoku: at a glance
What is ggsci?
ggsci quietly became a palette mirror, then taught itself to generate colors on demand
ggsci ships ready-made ggplot2 color scales, originally journal and sci-fi palettes and now overwhelmingly terminal themes — the iTerm collection has grown past 400 entries and picks up 30 to 70 more with each sync. The one structural change in the recent run is gephi_palettes(), which generates distinct categorical colors for an arbitrary number of levels rather than serving a fixed list. Release cadence is steady, roughly every six to eight weeks.
What is ichimoku?
A cloud-chart package quietly swapping its dependencies for its maintainer's own libraries.
ichimoku implements Ichimoku Kinko Hyo cloud charts, strategy backtesting and an OANDA data interface for R. Recent releases are almost entirely plumbing: 1.5.7 drops RcppSimdJson in favor of secretbase for JSON parsing, following earlier releases that moved hashing to secretbase and raised the nanonext and mirai floors. The charting and strategy surface has been stable since the 1.5.0 line.
ggsci vs ichimoku: editorial side-by-side
ggsci
2.5ANALYTICS
ggsci quietly became a palette mirror, then taught itself to generate colors on demand
◆ Current state
ggsci ships ready-made ggplot2 color scales, originally journal and sci-fi palettes and now overwhelmingly terminal themes — the iTerm collection has grown past 400 entries and picks up 30 to 70 more with each sync. The one structural change in the recent run is gephi_palettes(), which generates distinct categorical colors for an arbitrary number of levels rather than serving a fixed list. Release cadence is steady, roughly every six to eight weeks.
◆ Where it's heading
Two threads run in parallel. The larger one is curation: ggsci has effectively become a distribution channel for upstream color work, adding design-system palettes (Primer, Atlassian, Bootstrap, Tailwind) and re-syncing iTerm as that project changes, including correcting existing color values when upstream moves. The smaller and more interesting one is generation — the Gephi engine sidesteps the ceiling every fixed palette has, which is what happens when a plot needs more categories than any curated set provides.
◆ Prediction
Given how much of the release notes each cycle is a mechanical upstream sync, the plausible next step is automating those syncs rather than adding another vendor palette by hand; the Gephi generator is the more likely place any genuinely new capability appears.
ichimoku
0.0ANALYTICS
A cloud-chart package quietly swapping its dependencies for its maintainer's own libraries.
◆ Current state
ichimoku implements Ichimoku Kinko Hyo cloud charts, strategy backtesting and an OANDA data interface for R. Recent releases are almost entirely plumbing: 1.5.7 drops RcppSimdJson in favor of secretbase for JSON parsing, following earlier releases that moved hashing to secretbase and raised the nanonext and mirai floors. The charting and strategy surface has been stable since the 1.5.0 line.
◆ Where it's heading
The visible arc is consolidation onto the maintainer's own package family — secretbase for hashing and now JSON, nanonext and mirai for concurrency — which steadily removes third-party and Rcpp-based dependencies from the install chain. Feature work is sporadic and narrow when it comes: a faster POSIXct formatter exported as a utility, a multi-session option for the Shiny app, and a fix for asymmetric strategies that failed to emit a final entry signal.
◆ Prediction
Expect further dependency consolidation as the sibling packages gain capabilities, with ichimoku adopting them shortly after release rather than shipping new charting features.
Alternatives to ggsci and ichimoku
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 ggsci or ichimoku.
OHPL
A 2017 chemometrics method frozen in place, visited only when CRAN changes its documentation rules.
fastplyr
A fast dplyr stand-in that keeps finding new places to skip work entirely.
trias
Belgium's invasive-species indicator toolkit is in steady refinement, one plotting edge case at a time.
icesSAG
The ICES stock assessment client took upload away in 2024 and spent two years giving it back.
dggridR
A discrete global grid generator grew cell traversal and became a usable spatial index.
See all ggsci alternatives → · See all ichimoku alternatives →
Recent activity from ggsci and ichimoku
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 15d agoggsciggsci 5.2.0
- 1mo agoggsciggsci 5.1.0
- 2mo agoichimokuJSON parsing moves from RcppSimdJson to secretbase
- 4mo agoggsciggsci 5.0.0 generates categorical colors instead of serving a fixed list ⚡
- 4mo agoggsciggsci 4.3.0
- 8mo agoggsciggsci 4.2.0
- 9mo agoggsciggsci 4.1.0
- 1y agoichimokuFaster POSIXct formatting exported as a utility
- 1y agoichimokuMultiple concurrent sessions in the OANDA Shiny app
- 1y agoichimokuAsymmetric strategies now emit their final entry signal
- 2y agoichimokusecretbase floor raised to 1.0.0
- 2y agoichimokuArchive verification reverts to SHA256
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ggsci and ichimoku?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ggsci 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 ggsci better than ichimoku?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggsci 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 ggsci?
Top ggsci alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggsci alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggsci for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to ichimoku?
Top ichimoku alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ichimoku alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ichimoku for the full list with editorial commentary on each.