RMVMR
RMVMR is being tidied in lockstep with MVMR, the package it wraps
Comparison · Analytics
hstats vs spatstat
A side-by-side editorial comparison of hstats and spatstat — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
hstats vs spatstat: at a glance
What is hstats?
hstats settled into maintenance after its 1.0 restructuring, with model coverage the only thing still growing.
hstats computes Friedman's H-statistics, partial dependence, ICE curves and permutation importance for any model exposing a prediction function. The releases in view are consolidation: performance work on plain data.frames, ICE facetting for multioutput models, ranger survival support, and a ggplot 4.0 compatibility pass in 2025. The package moved to the ModelOriented organisation in 1.2.0.
What is spatstat?
The spatstat umbrella package, now mostly a pointer to the sub-packages doing the work
spatstat is the front package of a family that was split into specialised components — spatstat.geom, spatstat.random, spatstat.model, spatstat.explore, spatstat.univar and spatstat.sparse. Its own release notes reflect that: entries in this window are largely announcements of where the real changes landed, plus documentation and cross-reference maintenance. The codebase it fronts passed 200,000 lines as of 3.5-1.
hstats vs spatstat: editorial side-by-side
hstats
0.0ANALYTICS
hstats settled into maintenance after its 1.0 restructuring, with model coverage the only thing still growing.
◆ Current state
hstats computes Friedman's H-statistics, partial dependence, ICE curves and permutation importance for any model exposing a prediction function. The releases in view are consolidation: performance work on plain data.frames, ICE facetting for multioutput models, ranger survival support, and a ggplot 4.0 compatibility pass in 2025. The package moved to the ModelOriented organisation in 1.2.0.
◆ Where it's heading
The structural work — the hstats_matrix object, quantile approximation, revised plotting — landed in 1.0.0 just outside this window, and nothing since has changed the package's shape. What continues is model-coverage plumbing: mlr3 classification modes, ranger survival behind a survival argument, and factor predictions added in 1.1.0 then removed again in 1.2.0. The most recent releases are compatibility-driven, tracking ggplot2 rather than the interaction statistics.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next release to be another dependency-compatibility pass or a new model backend working out of the box, rather than new interaction statistics.
spatstat
0.0ANALYTICS
The spatstat umbrella package, now mostly a pointer to the sub-packages doing the work
◆ Current state
spatstat is the front package of a family that was split into specialised components — spatstat.geom, spatstat.random, spatstat.model, spatstat.explore, spatstat.univar and spatstat.sparse. Its own release notes reflect that: entries in this window are largely announcements of where the real changes landed, plus documentation and cross-reference maintenance. The codebase it fronts passed 200,000 lines as of 3.5-1.
◆ Where it's heading
The split is effectively complete and the umbrella's role has settled into coordination — tracking version dependencies across sub-packages and pointing users to them. The family has kept subdividing over this period, with spatstat.univar joining in 3.1-0. The one substantive user-facing addition here is documentation infrastructure: 3.3-0 added the ability to list the history of changes to a specific function, which is a navigational answer to a codebase now spread across many packages.
◆ Prediction
Expect this package's notes to continue summarising sub-package activity rather than carrying features of its own, since every release in this window does exactly that. Read spatstat.geom, spatstat.random and spatstat.model for the substance.
Alternatives to hstats and spatstat
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 hstats or spatstat.
geoarrow-r
geoarrow tracks the GeoArrow spec and otherwise just keeps compiling
n2khab
n2khab keeps retracting interpretations of habitat data it can't actually support
tidypolars
tidypolars is grinding toward complete dplyr coverage, one supported function at a time
OneSampleMR
OneSampleMR found that argument order in a formula was silently changing its estimates
bpbounds
bpbounds found the same swapped-cell bug twice and clamped its bounds back into range
See all hstats alternatives → · See all spatstat alternatives →
Recent activity from hstats and spatstat
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2mo agospatstatSub-package updates across sparse, univar and random
- 6mo agospatstatspatstat passes 200,000 lines of code
- 10mo agohstatsggplot 4.0 compatibility and test coverage
- 10mo agospatstatNew vignette documenting NA spatial objects
- 1y agospatstatPer-function change history now listable
- 1y agohstatsranger survival models supported out of the box
- 2y agohstatsMoves to ModelOriented; factor predictions removed
- 2y agospatstatspatstat.univar joins the package family
- 2y agohstatsICE facets for multioutput models; mlr3 fixes
- 2y agohstatsFaster data.frame paths; NaN H-statistics fixed
- 2y agohstatsFactor predictions and line-style 2D partial dependence
- 3y agospatstatSub-package cross-references and docs corrected
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between hstats and spatstat?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. hstats and spatstat 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 hstats better than spatstat?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. hstats and spatstat 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 hstats?
Top hstats alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "hstats alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/hstats for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to spatstat?
Top spatstat alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "spatstat alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/spatstat-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.