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Comparison · Analytics
icesSAG vs rstatix
A side-by-side editorial comparison of icesSAG and rstatix — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
icesSAG vs rstatix: at a glance
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.
What is rstatix?
rstatix hit 1.0 by unrounding every p-value it has ever returned
rstatix is the pipe-friendly test wrapper behind most ggpubr annotation workflows — t-tests, Wilcoxon, ANOVA, post-hoc comparisons, effect sizes, all returning tidy data frames. After three quiet years of CRAN-compat patching, it shipped 1.0.0 and 1.1.0 three weeks apart in mid-2026. Both releases push in the same direction: interval estimates and full-precision output for numbers the package previously rounded or omitted.
icesSAG vs rstatix: editorial side-by-side
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.
rstatix
2.5ANALYTICS
rstatix hit 1.0 by unrounding every p-value it has ever returned
◆ Current state
rstatix is the pipe-friendly test wrapper behind most ggpubr annotation workflows — t-tests, Wilcoxon, ANOVA, post-hoc comparisons, effect sizes, all returning tidy data frames. After three quiet years of CRAN-compat patching, it shipped 1.0.0 and 1.1.0 three weeks apart in mid-2026. Both releases push in the same direction: interval estimates and full-precision output for numbers the package previously rounded or omitted.
◆ Where it's heading
The work is about matching what dedicated effect-size packages give you without taking on their dependencies. Confidence intervals for partial eta squared and for Cohen's d are both computed in base R from noncentral distributions and both check against effectsize; compact letter displays are computed in base R against multcompView. The pattern is deliberate — reproduce the reference implementation, add no imports. Alongside that, the package has started correcting statistical hygiene it got wrong for years, most visibly by no longer rounding p-values before adjusting them.
◆ Prediction
The analytic-interval machinery now exists for eta squared and Cohen's d; the untouched effect sizes in the package — eta squared for nonparametric tests, Cramer's V, rank-biserial correlation — are the obvious next targets for the same base-R noncentral treatment.
Alternatives to icesSAG and rstatix
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 icesSAG or rstatix.
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.
dggridR
A discrete global grid generator grew cell traversal and became a usable spatial index.
vegan
Community ecology's standard toolkit is retiring the functions a generation of scripts was built on.
ichimoku
A cloud-chart package quietly swapping its dependencies for its maintainer's own libraries.
See all icesSAG alternatives → · See all rstatix alternatives →
Recent activity from icesSAG and rstatix
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 22d agorstatixrstatix 1.1.0 gives Cohen's d a deterministic confidence interval
- 1mo agorstatixrstatix 1.0.0 stops rounding p-values before adjusting them ⚡
- 3mo agoicesSAGStock upload restored with pre-submission validation
- 9mo agorstatixrstatix 0.7.3
- 1y agoicesSAGEvery function repointed at a new API, with JWT auth ⚡
- 3y agorstatixrstatix 0.7.2
- 3y agorstatixrstatix 0.7.1
- 5y agorstatixrstatix 0.7.0
- 6y agoicesSAGlocal release 1.3-5
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between icesSAG and rstatix?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. rstatix 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 icesSAG better than rstatix?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. rstatix 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 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.
What are the best alternatives to rstatix?
Top rstatix alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "rstatix alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rstatix for the full list with editorial commentary on each.