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A 2017 chemometrics method frozen in place, visited only when CRAN changes its documentation rules.
Comparison · Analytics
RMVMR vs vegan
A side-by-side editorial comparison of RMVMR and vegan — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
RMVMR vs vegan: at a glance
What is RMVMR?
RMVMR is being tidied in lockstep with MVMR, the package it wraps
RMVMR provides radial multivariable Mendelian randomization — radial IVW estimation and plots layered over the MVMR package's conditional instrument-strength machinery. It has no independent release schedule: versions arrive alongside MVMR's, pin a minimum MVMR version, and fix defects in the seam between the two. Its most recent release landed the same day as new versions of MVMR and OneSampleMR.
What is vegan?
Community ecology's standard toolkit is retiring the functions a generation of scripts was built on.
vegan is the reference R package for ordination and diversity analysis in community ecology. The 2.7 line redesigned constrained ordination graphics from scratch, made adonis defunct in favor of adonis2, and moved permutation tests for partial RDA and db-RDA onto residualized predictors. The current 2.7-5 release is stabilization — parallel processing on Windows, ggvegan compatibility for tidy scores, and arrow label placement.
RMVMR vs vegan: editorial side-by-side
RMVMR
0.0ANALYTICS
RMVMR is being tidied in lockstep with MVMR, the package it wraps
◆ Current state
RMVMR provides radial multivariable Mendelian randomization — radial IVW estimation and plots layered over the MVMR package's conditional instrument-strength machinery. It has no independent release schedule: versions arrive alongside MVMR's, pin a minimum MVMR version, and fix defects in the seam between the two. Its most recent release landed the same day as new versions of MVMR and OneSampleMR.
◆ Where it's heading
The work is code hygiene with results held fixed. ivw_rmvmr() now fits the radial IVW model explicitly rather than inheriting variables left over from the orientation loop, an undocumented data element carrying unused intermediate frames is gone, and plot_rmvmr() stops recomputing univariate radial analyses it already has — roughly halving the RadialMR calls with identical output. Each note is explicit that coefficients, standard errors and degrees of freedom are unchanged, which is a deliberate contrast with MVMR's own 2026 releases, where several fixes did change reported values.
◆ Prediction
Because the package pins MVMR versions rather than vendoring behaviour, the next release most likely follows MVMR's next correctness fix; nothing in the notes points to independent feature work.
vegan
0.0ANALYTICS
Community ecology's standard toolkit is retiring the functions a generation of scripts was built on.
◆ Current state
vegan is the reference R package for ordination and diversity analysis in community ecology. The 2.7 line redesigned constrained ordination graphics from scratch, made adonis defunct in favor of adonis2, and moved permutation tests for partial RDA and db-RDA onto residualized predictors. The current 2.7-5 release is stabilization — parallel processing on Windows, ggvegan compatibility for tidy scores, and arrow label placement.
◆ Where it's heading
Two long deprecation programs are converging. Plotting is being pushed out of the package: lattice functions are deprecated in favor of ggplot2 equivalents now living in ggvegan, a separate CRAN package, while vegan's own base graphics were rebuilt around independently configurable score types and pipe-based construction. Meanwhile the statistical core is being made internally consistent — add1 and drop1 no longer use different internal models, and summary is no longer an accepted route to ordination scores.
◆ Prediction
Expect the remaining lattice functions to go defunct and more plotting responsibility to shift to ggvegan, leaving vegan as the statistical engine with a thin base graphics layer.
Alternatives to RMVMR and vegan
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 RMVMR or vegan.
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.
icesSAG
The ICES stock assessment client took upload away in 2024 and spent two years giving it back.
dggridR
A discrete global grid generator grew cell traversal and became a usable spatial index.
ichimoku
A cloud-chart package quietly swapping its dependencies for its maintainer's own libraries.
Recent activity from RMVMR and vegan
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoRMVMRRMVMR fixes a gencov error and halves redundant radial calls
- 2mo agoveganParallel processing stabilized, especially on Windows
- 3mo agoRMVMRRMVMR 0.4.4
- 4mo agoRMVMRRMVMR 0.4.3
- 5mo agoveganLattice plotting deprecated as ggvegan reaches CRAN
- 5mo agoRMVMRRMVMR now requires MVMR 0.4.3 or later
- 10mo agoveganPartial RDA permutation tests adopt residualized predictors
- 1y agoRMVMRRMVMR 0.4.1
- 1y agoveganOrdination graphics rebuilt and adonis made defunct ⚡
- 1y agoveganRelease chasing undefined behavior in a C function
- 1y agoveganpca, ca and pco added for unconstrained ordination
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between RMVMR and vegan?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. RMVMR and vegan 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 RMVMR better than vegan?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. RMVMR and vegan 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 RMVMR?
Top RMVMR alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "RMVMR alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rmvmr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to vegan?
Top vegan alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "vegan alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/vegan-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.