randomwalk
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Comparison · Analytics
ggstats vs r-owidapi
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ggstats and r-owidapi — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
ggstats vs r-owidapi: at a glance
What is ggstats?
ggstats keeps widening what a coefficient or Likert plot can be
ggstats extends ggplot2 with statistical plotting: model coefficient plots, Likert and diverging bar charts, proportion geometries and the helpers that make them behave. Recent releases have added an experimental gglikert_side(), left and right total columns for gglikert(), and survey-object support across the Likert family. Development is steady and CRAN-paced, with releases every two to three months.
What is r-owidapi?
The R client for Our World in Data found its search had been reading a tenth of the catalog.
owidapi is a small R client for Our World in Data, covering chart data retrieval, metadata, the full chart catalog, and search over it, with experimental Shiny output helpers. It is three releases old and the most recent one is almost entirely repair: the catalog function was silently truncating at 1000 rows because of a Datasette row cap, which meant search had been operating on a fraction of what exists.
ggstats vs r-owidapi: editorial side-by-side
ggstats
0.0ANALYTICS
ggstats keeps widening what a coefficient or Likert plot can be
◆ Current state
ggstats extends ggplot2 with statistical plotting: model coefficient plots, Likert and diverging bar charts, proportion geometries and the helpers that make them behave. Recent releases have added an experimental gglikert_side(), left and right total columns for gglikert(), and survey-object support across the Likert family. Development is steady and CRAN-paced, with releases every two to three months.
◆ Where it's heading
Two long-running threads. The coefficient side has been consolidating — ggcoef_multinom() and ggcoef_multicomponents() soft-deprecated in favour of a unified ggcoef_model() with group_by, plus new ggcoef_dodged() and ggcoef_faceted() variants. The Likert side keeps expanding outward instead, absorbing survey objects, total columns and side-by-side layouts. Underneath both is a steady tax of ggplot2 and vctrs compatibility work, including tracking the geom_errorbarh() deprecation in ggplot2 4.0.0.
◆ Prediction
Expect gglikert_side() to lose its experimental status once its interface settles, and the deprecated multinomial entry points to be removed in a future release now that ggcoef_model() covers their cases.
r-owidapi
2.5ANALYTICS
The R client for Our World in Data found its search had been reading a tenth of the catalog.
◆ Current state
owidapi is a small R client for Our World in Data, covering chart data retrieval, metadata, the full chart catalog, and search over it, with experimental Shiny output helpers. It is three releases old and the most recent one is almost entirely repair: the catalog function was silently truncating at 1000 rows because of a Datasette row cap, which meant search had been operating on a fraction of what exists.
◆ Where it's heading
Development is about making a thin wrapper trustworthy against an upstream that moves without notice. The truncation fix pages through the catalog properly; a separate fix stops the function breaking when Our World in Data dropped a column, by parsing typed columns only when present. Tests moved to mocked responses, with a small live suite retained purely to detect schema drift and skipped on CRAN — a sensible design for a package whose main risk is that the API changes shape rather than that the code is wrong. The user-facing surface has not grown since the initial release; the work is in defending it.
◆ Prediction
On this pattern the next release is likelier to be another upstream-compatibility fix than new functionality, with the schema-drift tests the mechanism that surfaces it.
Alternatives to ggstats and r-owidapi
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 ggstats or r-owidapi.
fastml
fastml added survival modelling and leakage-proof resampling, moving past classification and regression.
abclass
abclass built out angle-based classifiers in 2022, then went quiet except for CRAN upkeep.
churon
churon is spending its entire release history getting a Rust ONNX binding through CRAN.
firatheme
firatheme woke up after four years and started fixing what ggplot2 changed underneath it.
bagyo
bagyo reached CRAN as a Philippine tropical cyclone dataset, with its tags stamped out of order.
See all ggstats alternatives → · See all r-owidapi alternatives →
Recent activity from ggstats and r-owidapi
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 20d agor-owidapiCatalog was silently capped at 1000 charts; now paged in full
- 5mo agoggstatsgglikert_side() and total columns for Likert plots
- 7mo agoggstatsLikert functions accept survey objects
- 11mo agoggstatsTable output for ggcoef_compare(); x-axis limits harmonised
- 1y agoggstatsggstats 0.10.0
- 1y agor-owidapiRequest logic consolidated, with graceful catalog errors
- 1y agoggstatsCoefficient plots unified around ggcoef_model() with grouping
- 1y agor-owidapiFirst release: data, metadata, catalog and search
- 1y agoggstatsDiverging and Likert geoms redesigned; connector geoms added
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ggstats and r-owidapi?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. r-owidapi 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 ggstats better than r-owidapi?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. r-owidapi 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 ggstats?
Top ggstats alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggstats alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggstats for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to r-owidapi?
Top r-owidapi alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "r-owidapi alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/r-owidapi for the full list with editorial commentary on each.