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Comparison · Infra & APIs

radiatR vs stochvol

A side-by-side editorial comparison of radiatR and stochvol — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

radiatR vs stochvol: at a glance

FeatureradiatRstochvol
SectorInfra & APIsInfra & APIs
Velocity score2.50.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themescircular-statistics, animal-movement, r-package, shiny-appbayesian-inference, stochastic-volatility, mcmc, rcpp
Last editorial update4h ago42m ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is radiatR?

A circular-statistics toolkit for animal movement, shipped and then tightened in three weeks.

radiatR reads movement trajectories, plots them on circular axes, computes kinematics such as speed and path sinuosity, and runs the circular statistics that go with them, including tests of mean direction, symmetry and unimodality. It arrived as a first public release on 9 July 2026 with an accompanying Shiny app, and has had two releases since at roughly weekly intervals. The 0.1.x line is still setting its boundaries: 0.1.2 removes a loader dialect and makes previously silent data problems into errors.

Read the full radiatR trajectory →

What is stochvol?

A Bayesian volatility sampler in its maintenance decade, paying for its own speed

stochvol runs MCMC for stochastic volatility models, with a C++ sampler underneath an R interface. Five years of releases in this window contain no new models: the work is compiler and dependency compatibility, CRAN check notes, and a steady trickle of corrections to the sampler itself. Its methodological milestone, the Journal of Statistical Software paper, is recorded in a 2021 tag.

Read the full stochvol trajectory →

radiatR vs stochvol: editorial side-by-side

R
radiatR
INFRA · APIS
2.5

A circular-statistics toolkit for animal movement, shipped and then tightened in three weeks.

◆ Current state

radiatR reads movement trajectories, plots them on circular axes, computes kinematics such as speed and path sinuosity, and runs the circular statistics that go with them, including tests of mean direction, symmetry and unimodality. It arrived as a first public release on 9 July 2026 with an accompanying Shiny app, and has had two releases since at roughly weekly intervals. The 0.1.x line is still setting its boundaries: 0.1.2 removes a loader dialect and makes previously silent data problems into errors.

◆ Where it's heading

Three releases in twelve days show a package hardening in public rather than accreting features. The direction of travel is toward refusing bad input instead of quietly working around it: non-finite coordinate rows now error by default rather than being dropped silently, combining Tracks objects rejects colliding trajectory ids and conflicting calibration metadata instead of merging them and discarding one side, and the Shiny app clears prior state before reading a new upload. The statistical surface is growing in parallel, but within the scope the first release already claimed.

◆ Prediction

Expect the remaining goodness-of-fit gap the notes name explicitly, Jones-Pewsey, to be filled in a later release, and the error-on-bad-input treatment to reach the parts of the loader it has not yet covered. A CRAN submission is the natural next step for a package this young, though nothing in these entries commits to one.

S
stochvol
INFRA · APIS
0.0

A Bayesian volatility sampler in its maintenance decade, paying for its own speed

◆ Current state

stochvol runs MCMC for stochastic volatility models, with a C++ sampler underneath an R interface. Five years of releases in this window contain no new models: the work is compiler and dependency compatibility, CRAN check notes, and a steady trickle of corrections to the sampler itself. Its methodological milestone, the Journal of Statistical Software paper, is recorded in a 2021 tag.

◆ Where it's heading

This is what a finished computational package looks like. The formula interface arrived at 3.1.0 and nothing has been added since; what changes is the ground underneath — RcppArmadillo major versions, UBSan checks, error-handling conventions moving from Rf_error to Rcpp::stop for correct memory management. The recurring pattern worth watching is that several releases fix real errors in the sampler's proposal distributions, found by users and by CRAN's own instrumented checks rather than by the maintainer.

◆ Prediction

Nothing in these notes suggests new methodology. Expect the next release when RcppArmadillo or a CRAN check flavour forces one, and treat any bug report against the samplers as the more consequential event.

Alternatives to radiatR and stochvol

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 radiatR or stochvol.

See all radiatR alternatives → · See all stochvol alternatives →

Recent activity from radiatR and stochvol

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 1mo agoradiatRctrax loader dropped; bad coordinates now error by default
  2. 1mo agoradiatRWrapped-Cauchy and Pycke tests close two statistical gaps
  3. 1mo agoradiatRFirst public release
  4. 5mo agostochvolSampler crash with constant parameters fixed, plus RcppArmadillo 15
  5. 1y agostochvolTwo CRAN check notes cleared
  6. 1y agostochvolProposal variance corrected in the centered parameterisation
  7. 2y agostochvolCRAN stochvol 3.2.4
  8. 2y agostochvolRolling-window indexing and inverse gamma prior validation fixed
  9. 3y agostochvolCore C++ sampler routines exported for reuse

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between radiatR and stochvol?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. radiatR 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 radiatR better than stochvol?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. radiatR 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 radiatR?

Top radiatR alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "radiatR alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/radiatr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to stochvol?

Top stochvol alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "stochvol alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/stochvol for the full list with editorial commentary on each.