RMVMR
RMVMR is being tidied in lockstep with MVMR, the package it wraps
A side-by-side editorial comparison of malariasimulation and shapviz — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
An individual-based malaria model that added Plasmodium vivax, hypnozoites and all
malariasimulation is an individual-based malaria transmission model. The visible history is short but consequential: v2.0.2 extended the model beyond its original parasite species to Plasmodium vivax, and the most recent tag is not a code release at all but a coordinated snapshot freezing the whole malariaverse suite at a known state.
shapviz refines its SHAP plots release by release while chasing ggplot2's moving target.
shapviz turns SHAP values from XGBoost, LightGBM, H2O, kernelshap and other sources into standard diagnostic plots — importance, dependence, waterfall, force and interaction. Recent work is plot ergonomics: shared y-axis control across dependence plots, a bar view for interaction values, and axis collection via patchwork. The two most recent releases are pure compatibility and bug fixes.
malariasimulation is an individual-based malaria transmission model. The visible history is short but consequential: v2.0.2 extended the model beyond its original parasite species to Plasmodium vivax, and the most recent tag is not a code release at all but a coordinated snapshot freezing the whole malariaverse suite at a known state.
The direction is toward being a multi-species platform rather than a single-parasite simulator, and toward being usable as a reproducible research artefact. The P. vivax work was not a wrapper over the existing model — it added hypnozoites, competing hazards, an equilibrium solution and species-specific immunity behaviour, while deliberately removing blood and severe immunity components that do not apply. The snapshot tag addresses the other half of that: analyses built on a fast-moving suite need a version set they can return to.
The snapshot being tagged immediately before an announced update suggests the next release changes enough to break existing analyses, which is why the freeze was published first. The entries do not say what that update contains.
shapviz turns SHAP values from XGBoost, LightGBM, H2O, kernelshap and other sources into standard diagnostic plots — importance, dependence, waterfall, force and interaction. Recent work is plot ergonomics: shared y-axis control across dependence plots, a bar view for interaction values, and axis collection via patchwork. The two most recent releases are pure compatibility and bug fixes.
Two threads run in parallel here. One is visual refinement converging on conventions from Python's shap — the 0.10.0 notes openly float switching share_y to TRUE to match it. The other is connector maintenance, keeping pace with H2O, XGBoost 1.x and 2.x, shapr and permshap as each changes. Neither thread adds new explanation methods; shapviz's job is presentation, and it is being polished rather than extended.
Expect share_y = TRUE to become the default and further ggplot2 4.x fallout, with connector updates arriving as the upstream SHAP packages release.
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 malariasimulation or shapviz.
RMVMR is being tidied in lockstep with MVMR, the package it wraps
geoarrow tracks the GeoArrow spec and otherwise just keeps compiling
n2khab keeps retracting interpretations of habitat data it can't actually support
tidypolars is grinding toward complete dplyr coverage, one supported function at a time
OneSampleMR found that argument order in a formula was silently changing its estimates
bpbounds found the same swapped-cell bug twice and clamped its bounds back into range
See all malariasimulation alternatives → · See all shapviz alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. malariasimulation and shapviz 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.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. malariasimulation and shapviz 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.
Top malariasimulation alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "malariasimulation alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/malariasimulation for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top shapviz alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "shapviz alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/shapviz for the full list with editorial commentary on each.