distributional
distributional taught + and - to work on any pair of distributions, closing the algebra it started with.
Comparison · Analytics
ggstatsplot vs icesSAG
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ggstatsplot and icesSAG — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
ggstatsplot vs icesSAG: at a glance
What is ggstatsplot?
ggstatsplot reached 1.0 by adding tests, having outsourced its statistics years ago.
ggstatsplot produces ggplot2 graphics with statistical test results embedded in the subtitle and caption — comparisons, correlations, contingency tables, histograms. Since the 2019 refactoring that moved all statistical computation into the separate statsExpressions package, its own release notes have been dominated by upstream tracking: adapting to ggplot2, dplyr, purrr and easystats changes. The 1.0.0 release in April 2026 breaks that run with real additions to the contingency-table functions.
What is icesSAG?
The ICES stock assessment client took upload away in 2024 and spent two years giving it back.
icesSAG is the R client for the ICES Stock Assessment Graphs database, used by fisheries scientists to retrieve and publish stock assessment summaries and figures. The 1.5.0 release repointed every function at a new API, replaced token authentication with JWT via icesConnect, and dropped file upload entirely. Upload returned in 1.6.2, now routing through icesDatsu to check file format and validate data before submission.
ggstatsplot vs icesSAG: editorial side-by-side
ggstatsplot
0.0ANALYTICS
ggstatsplot reached 1.0 by adding tests, having outsourced its statistics years ago.
◆ Current state
ggstatsplot produces ggplot2 graphics with statistical test results embedded in the subtitle and caption — comparisons, correlations, contingency tables, histograms. Since the 2019 refactoring that moved all statistical computation into the separate statsExpressions package, its own release notes have been dominated by upstream tracking: adapting to ggplot2, dplyr, purrr and easystats changes. The 1.0.0 release in April 2026 breaks that run with real additions to the contingency-table functions.
◆ Where it's heading
The architecture explains the cadence. With statistics living in statsExpressions, ggstatsplot's own releases are mostly the tax of sitting on top of a fast-moving plotting and tidyverse stack — five of the six most recent entries change nothing a user would notice. When substantive work does arrive it clusters in the plotting layer's coverage of test families, as in 1.0.0's one-sample goodness-of-fit support and pairwise contingency analyses. The maintainer is also visibly deliberate about scope, having removed the normality-curve overlay in 0.12.4 for being unrelated to the analysis in question.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued parity work across the plot family — features that exist in one function being extended to its siblings, as goodness-of-fit support moved from ggpiestats to ggbarstats — punctuated by maintenance releases tracking ggplot2 and easystats.
icesSAG
0.0ANALYTICS
The ICES stock assessment client took upload away in 2024 and spent two years giving it back.
◆ Current state
icesSAG is the R client for the ICES Stock Assessment Graphs database, used by fisheries scientists to retrieve and publish stock assessment summaries and figures. The 1.5.0 release repointed every function at a new API, replaced token authentication with JWT via icesConnect, and dropped file upload entirely. Upload returned in 1.6.2, now routing through icesDatsu to check file format and validate data before submission.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is consolidating onto the shared ices-tools stack rather than carrying its own machinery — authentication moved to icesConnect, validation to icesDatsu, and the icesVocab dependency was dropped once it was no longer needed. Alongside that, redundant graph functions were deprecated and caching was added to reduce load on the server. Releases are infrequent and driven by upstream API changes.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next release to follow whatever the ICES service or the sibling ices-tools packages change next, rather than introducing new analysis capability of its own.
Alternatives to ggstatsplot and icesSAG
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 ggstatsplot or icesSAG.
ardlverse
An outside audit against Stata found seven errors in ardlverse's panel estimator, including regressions with no intercept.
weird
weird rebuilt itself on distributional objects, and now the anomaly tooling composes with everything else.
distributions3
distributions3 changes hands to Achim Zeileis, and a moment calculation bug goes with it.
mizer
After two and a half years dormant, mizer shipped three major versions in seven weeks.
vellumplot
vellumplot tags its first release with a bet most R grammars don't make: the static figure and the widget are the same object.
See all ggstatsplot alternatives → · See all icesSAG alternatives →
Recent activity from ggstatsplot and icesSAG
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3mo agoicesSAGStock upload restored with pre-submission validation
- 3mo agoggstatsplotPairwise contingency tests and one-sample goodness-of-fit
- 4mo agoggstatsplotInternal maintenance only
- 6mo agoggstatsplotAdapted to dplyr 1.2.0 and purrr 1.2.1
- 8mo agoggstatsplotContributor list updated in DESCRIPTION
- 10mo agoggstatsplotSecondary axis label parsing fixed in gghistostats
- 11mo agoggstatsplotAdapted to the latest ggplot2 release
- 1y agoicesSAGEvery function repointed at a new API, with JWT auth ⚡
- 6y agoicesSAGlocal release 1.3-5
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ggstatsplot and icesSAG?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ggstatsplot and icesSAG 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 ggstatsplot better than icesSAG?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggstatsplot and icesSAG 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 ggstatsplot?
Top ggstatsplot alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggstatsplot alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggstatsplot for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to icesSAG?
Top icesSAG alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "icesSAG alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/icessag for the full list with editorial commentary on each.