paleobuddy
paleobuddy can now simulate trait-dependent diversification, not just birth-death.
Comparison · Analytics
paletteer vs seriation
A side-by-side editorial comparison of paletteer and seriation — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
paletteer vs seriation: at a glance
What is paletteer?
A palette aggregator that grows by absorbing other packages, not by changing shape
paletteer collects colour palettes from across the R ecosystem behind one consistent interface, so users can reference any of them by a single name rather than installing each source package. Its function surface has been essentially fixed for years; what changes each release is the catalogue. Version 1.7.0 pulls in palettes from ButterflyColors, feathers, ggsci, khroma, PrettyCols, tayloRswift, blueycolors, amerika, Rdune and poisonfrogs, and tightens argument checking.
What is seriation?
seriation stopped shipping algorithms and started shipping a way to pick between them.
seriation finds meaningful orderings for matrices, distance objects and dendrograms, and carries a large registry of methods from classic combinatorial criteria to t-SNE and UMAP embeddings. The 1.5.0 release added a layer above that registry — seriate_best(), seriate_rep() and seriate_improve() — which run randomized methods repeatedly, in parallel, and keep the best result. Recent work is definitional and numeric rather than additive: 1.5.8 corrects the linear seriation criterion to match Hubert and Schultz's original 1976 definition.
paletteer vs seriation: editorial side-by-side
paletteer
0.0ANALYTICS
A palette aggregator that grows by absorbing other packages, not by changing shape
◆ Current state
paletteer collects colour palettes from across the R ecosystem behind one consistent interface, so users can reference any of them by a single name rather than installing each source package. Its function surface has been essentially fixed for years; what changes each release is the catalogue. Version 1.7.0 pulls in palettes from ButterflyColors, feathers, ggsci, khroma, PrettyCols, tayloRswift, blueycolors, amerika, Rdune and poisonfrogs, and tightens argument checking.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a catalogue, and catalogues grow by ingestion. Every substantive release since 1.3.0 is a list of source packages absorbed, in batches of tens to low hundreds of palettes, with occasional maintenance on the metadata tables that describe them. Release cadence follows contributor pull requests rather than any internal roadmap — roughly one release every one to two years, each bundling whatever accumulated.
◆ Prediction
Expect the same: another release when enough new source packages have been proposed, likely paired with further work on palettes_c_names and palettes_d_names, the only part of the package that has been iterated on for its own sake.
seriation
0.0ANALYTICS
seriation stopped shipping algorithms and started shipping a way to pick between them.
◆ Current state
seriation finds meaningful orderings for matrices, distance objects and dendrograms, and carries a large registry of methods from classic combinatorial criteria to t-SNE and UMAP embeddings. The 1.5.0 release added a layer above that registry — seriate_best(), seriate_rep() and seriate_improve() — which run randomized methods repeatedly, in parallel, and keep the best result. Recent work is definitional and numeric rather than additive: 1.5.8 corrects the linear seriation criterion to match Hubert and Schultz's original 1976 definition.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has shifted from breadth to judgment. Through 1.3.x the additions were new methods; from 1.5.0 the registry started carrying metadata about the methods — whether they are randomized, what criterion they optimize — so the package could choose and evaluate on the user's behalf. The 1.5.6 replacement of FORTRAN with C for BEA and ME points the same way, reducing the legacy surface underneath that machinery.
◆ Prediction
Further criterion audits are the likeliest next move, since 1.5.8 shows a published definition being reconciled against the implementation and the registry now records what each method optimizes. Expect corrections rather than new seriation algorithms.
Alternatives to paletteer and seriation
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 paletteer or seriation.
geodist
geodist stays dependency-free and fast, and warns you when 'cheap' distances stop being honest.
errors
errors keeps making uncertainty print the way each scientific field expects.
CMAQ
CMAQ went global in v5.5, and has been patching that surface ever since.
enpls
enpls has not changed its statistics since 2016 — only its website, twice.
grex
grex is a lookup table with a version number — it ships when the annotation moves.
See all paletteer alternatives → · See all seriation alternatives →
Recent activity from paletteer and seriation
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 7mo agopaletteerTen more source packages absorbed; argument checking tightened
- 0y agoseriationseriation 1.5.8 realigns linear criterion with Hubert and Schultz
- 1y agoseriationseriation 1.5.7 adds BK_unconstrained, handles tiny inputs
- 1y agoseriationseriation 1.5.6 replaces FORTRAN BEA with C, modernizes allocation
- 2y agoseriationseriation 1.5.5 digest: AOE method, rep parameter, MDS_angle fix
- 2y agopaletteerRoughly 170 palettes added from seven art and design packages
- 3y agoseriationseriation 1.5.1 refines pimage, permute and hmap
- 3y agoseriationseriation 1.5.0 adds seriate_best and parallel repeated search ⚡
- 3y agopaletteerMetBrewer, NatParksPalettes and six more sources added
- 4y agopaletteerHTML5-friendly documentation fix
- 5y agopaletteerggprism and nbapalettes added; palette metadata enriched
- 5y agopaletteersoilpalettes, rockthemes and Manu palettes added
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between paletteer and seriation?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. paletteer and seriation 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 paletteer better than seriation?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. paletteer and seriation 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 paletteer?
Top paletteer alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "paletteer alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/paletteer-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to seriation?
Top seriation alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "seriation alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/seriation-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.