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Comparison · Infra & APIs
inlabru vs valr
A side-by-side editorial comparison of inlabru and valr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
inlabru vs valr: at a glance
What is inlabru?
A Bayesian spatial modelling package rebuilding its foundations one breaking release at a time
inlabru wraps INLA for spatial, point-process and latent-Gaussian models in R. It is mid-modernisation: since 2.12.0 cut the sp stack, each release has renamed part of the public surface, standardised how external packages attach custom mappers, or replaced internal machinery. 2.15.0 is the latest step, pairing a new predictor evaluation and linearisation implementation with broom's tidy(), glance() and augment() methods and four non-zero-truncated observation families.
What is valr?
valr's interval verbs now read genomic files in place instead of demanding a loaded tibble.
valr reimplements bedtools-style genome interval arithmetic as tidyverse verbs backed by C++. Its long project has been closing the behavioural gap with bedtools — the book-ended interval semantics finally match in 0.10.0, three releases after the deprecation began. The July release also ends the assumption that intervals must be in memory: bed_map(), bed_intersect(), bed_subtract(), bed_coverage() and bed_window() accept a bigWig or bigBed path or URL where an interval table used to go.
inlabru vs valr: editorial side-by-side
inlabru
2.5INFRA · APIS
A Bayesian spatial modelling package rebuilding its foundations one breaking release at a time
◆ Current state
inlabru wraps INLA for spatial, point-process and latent-Gaussian models in R. It is mid-modernisation: since 2.12.0 cut the sp stack, each release has renamed part of the public surface, standardised how external packages attach custom mappers, or replaced internal machinery. 2.15.0 is the latest step, pairing a new predictor evaluation and linearisation implementation with broom's tidy(), glance() and augment() methods and four non-zero-truncated observation families.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc is consolidation of the extension surface rather than expansion of the model catalogue. Every release adds mappers or families with one hand and removes a dependency, a re-export or a deprecated path with the other — plyr in 2.15.0, fmesher's Depends entry in 2.14.1, sp and ggmap in 2.12.0. The compatibility flag bru_compat_pre_2_14_enable and the temporary fm_int/fm_pixels re-exports show a maintainer sequencing breaks across releases instead of landing them together.
◆ Prediction
The 2.14 compatibility flag is still defaulting to TRUE and the fmesher re-exports are described in the entries as temporary, so the next obvious move is a release that flips bru_compat_pre_2_14_enable off and drops those re-exports.
valr
0.0INFRA · APIS
valr's interval verbs now read genomic files in place instead of demanding a loaded tibble.
◆ Current state
valr reimplements bedtools-style genome interval arithmetic as tidyverse verbs backed by C++. Its long project has been closing the behavioural gap with bedtools — the book-ended interval semantics finally match in 0.10.0, three releases after the deprecation began. The July release also ends the assumption that intervals must be in memory: bed_map(), bed_intersect(), bed_subtract(), bed_coverage() and bed_window() accept a bigWig or bigBed path or URL where an interval table used to go.
◆ Where it's heading
Two arcs converge here. One is compatibility: min_overlap arrived with a deprecation warning in 0.9.0 and its default flipped from 0 to 1 in 0.10.0, so book-ended intervals are excluded by default as bedtools does, with the internal calculations in bed_closest() and friends deliberately left counting them. The other is the file-backed path, which grew out of the cpp11bigwig dependency adopted in 0.8.3 for read_bigwig() and re-exported in 0.9.0 — reading a file became querying one. Underneath, the C++ base keeps getting lighter: Rcpp swapped for cpp11, rlang cut to a single function, per-group memory copies removed from three verbs.
◆ Prediction
Only five verbs take a file argument today and bed_closest(), bed_glyph() and the statistical verbs do not, so extending the file-backed path across the rest of the API is the obvious follow-up. The deprecated tibble re-exports and the now-defunct n_fields argument suggest continued removal of the compatibility layer in the next minor release.
Alternatives to inlabru and valr
Other Infra & APIs 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 inlabru or valr.
massProps
A mass-properties rollup spends a year on documentation and follows its sibling's API
writeAlizer
Six months of releases and not one of them touched the scoring models
samplr
A cognitive-science sampling package ships once, then goes quiet for eighteen months
stochvol
A Bayesian volatility sampler in its maintenance decade, paying for its own speed
midr
A black-box interpreter reaches CRAN, then learns multi-class and survival responses
See all inlabru alternatives → · See all valr alternatives →
Recent activity from inlabru and valr
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 23d agoinlabruPredictor linearisation rewritten; broom tidiers, truncated families
- 1mo agovalrInterval verbs read bigWig and bigBed files directly ⚡
- 3mo agoinlabruBugfix release: factor contrasts, raster extraction, error classes
- 5mo agoinlabruNew mappers, standardised cgeneric support, bru_obs storage refactor
- 7mo agovalrbed_slop() and bed_flank() preserve input row order
- 8mo agovalrmin_overlap introduced; C++ backend moves from Rcpp to cpp11
- 1y agoinlabruMapper classes shortened to bm_*, experimental predictor aggregation
- 1y agovalrTest updated for ggplot2 3.6.0
- 1y agovalrread_bigwig() switches to cpp11bigwig; read_gtf() deprecated
- 1y agoinlabruDrops sp and ggmap for an sf-native spatial stack ⚡
- 1y agovalrCRAN Rd link NOTE and maintainer email change
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between inlabru and valr?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. inlabru 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 inlabru better than valr?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. inlabru 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 Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to inlabru?
Top inlabru alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "inlabru alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/inlabru for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to valr?
Top valr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "valr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/valr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.