tidyr
tidyr replaced separate() with a family that says what it does.
Comparison · Analytics
Hex vs modeltime
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Hex and modeltime — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Hex vs modeltime: at a glance
| Feature | Hex | modeltime |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Analytics | Analytics |
| Velocity score | 6.3 | 0.0 |
| Sparks · 30d | 1 | 0 |
| Top themes | agents, cli, mcp, model-routing | forecasting, conformal-prediction, tidymodels, parallelism |
| Last editorial update | 1d ago | 1h ago |
| Website | — | Visit → |
What is Hex?
Hex is moving its agent out of the notebook and onto programmable surfaces.
Hex ships a fortnightly digest, and the through-line across the last ten is agent reach. The agent now runs from a CLI and API, appears inside Codex, acts as an MCP client against the user's own apps, can search the web, and can see the generative apps it builds. Alongside that, the model layer has become a customer-facing control: a picker, an admin-set default, Auto with visible attribution, and a rotating roster including Fable 5, Kimi K2.7, Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6.
What is modeltime?
modeltime built conformal intervals in, then went quiet on features.
modeltime is at 1.3.3, a single change making the package robust to xgboost version shifts. The feature weight sits in 1.3.2, which added a future-based parallel backend, the maape() accuracy metric and dials helpers for ADAM engine tuning, and further back in the 1.2.8 and 1.3.0 pair that introduced conformal prediction intervals and then carried them through the nested forecasting workflow.
Hex vs modeltime: editorial side-by-side
Hex
6.3ANALYTICS
Hex is moving its agent out of the notebook and onto programmable surfaces.
◆ Current state
Hex ships a fortnightly digest, and the through-line across the last ten is agent reach. The agent now runs from a CLI and API, appears inside Codex, acts as an MCP client against the user's own apps, can search the web, and can see the generative apps it builds. Alongside that, the model layer has become a customer-facing control: a picker, an admin-set default, Auto with visible attribution, and a rotating roster including Fable 5, Kimi K2.7, Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6.
◆ Where it's heading
Hex is positioning the agent as a component other systems call rather than a feature users visit. Governance is being built out in parallel — spend limits, credit usage controls, enterprise role-request controls, signed embedding — which is the pattern of a product preparing for programmatic usage it does not directly supervise. The generative-app surface is drifting the same way, from generated output toward editable, brandable, embeddable artifacts.
◆ Prediction
Expect the CLI and API surface to deepen before the notebook UI gains much, with more of Context Studio and app management reachable programmatically, and expect the spend and role controls to keep pace as headless usage grows.
modeltime
0.0ANALYTICS
modeltime built conformal intervals in, then went quiet on features.
◆ Current state
modeltime is at 1.3.3, a single change making the package robust to xgboost version shifts. The feature weight sits in 1.3.2, which added a future-based parallel backend, the maape() accuracy metric and dials helpers for ADAM engine tuning, and further back in the 1.2.8 and 1.3.0 pair that introduced conformal prediction intervals and then carried them through the nested forecasting workflow.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc runs from uncertainty quantification to execution. Conformal intervals arrived first and were then threaded through nested fitting, refitting and the printed forecast tables so users can see which confidence method produced an interval. The later work moves down a layer to how forecasts are computed — a portable future backend replacing foreach tuning — rather than what they express.
◆ Prediction
With only an xgboost compatibility fix since the 1.3.2 feature release, the entries do not support a confident prediction about what comes next beyond continued dependency maintenance.
Alternatives to Hex and modeltime
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 Hex or modeltime.
performance
performance keeps adding ways to check a model you have already fitted.
cmdstanpy
CmdStanPy is clearing deprecations ahead of a 2.0 it keeps announcing.
dowhy
DoWhy adds one estimation method a year and keeps its identification edge.
OpenHouse
OpenHouse is hardening the seams where table policies and jobs quietly fail.
silx
silx 3.0 moved its default Qt binding to PySide6 — a migration for everyone embedding it.
See all Hex alternatives → · See all modeltime alternatives →
Recent activity from Hex and modeltime
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoHexThe Hex Agent reads a whole Slack thread, then opens a notebook
- 2d agoHexFast mode, GPT-5.6, and visible model attribution for Auto
- 13d agoHexHex Agent becomes callable from the CLI and API ⚡
- 22d agoHexEditable generative-app code, and an agent that sees what it builds
- 29d agoHexMore control over credits, thread metadata, and role requests
- 1mo agoHexTwo new models and more controls over generative apps
- 7mo agomodeltimeRobustness to xgboost version changes
- 11mo agomodeltimefuture parallel backend, maape() metric and ADAM tuning helpers
- 2y agomodeltimeConformal intervals reach the nested forecasting workflow
- 2y agomodeltimeConformal prediction intervals introduced
- 3y agomodeltimeFixes the Smooth es() model
- 3y agomodeltimeFixes failing developer-tools tests
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Hex and modeltime?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Hex is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 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 Hex better than modeltime?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Hex is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 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 Hex?
Top Hex alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Hex alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/hex for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to modeltime?
Top modeltime alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "modeltime alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/modeltime for the full list with editorial commentary on each.