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silx vs wasserportal

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

silx vs wasserportal: at a glance

Featuresilxwasserportal
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score5.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesscientific-computing, data-visualization, synchrotron, qtgroundwater-monitoring, web-scraping, thingsboard, iot-telemetry
Last editorial update2h ago3d ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is silx?

silx settles into maintenance a release after its PySide6 migration

silx is in the quiet phase after a generational release. 3.1.1 is a single fix to FitWidget loading a fit function from file. The release before it, 3.1.0, was the first real feature work since the migration - asinh axis scaling, twilight colormaps, and dark-theme icons - and 3.0.1 was similarly small. The 3.0.0 cut that reset the Qt binding and Python floor still defines what the line is doing.

Read the full silx trajectory →

What is wasserportal?

A Berlin groundwater scraper grew a full IoT publishing pipeline in two days.

wasserportal scrapes groundwater and surface water monitoring data from Wasserportal Berlin — station metadata, water levels, quality series. For its first four years that was the whole product, with releases tracking the portal's own churn: a new API version in 2023, new three-letter variable codes, and a 2026 fix decoding pages as windows-1252 because the server declares UTF-8 but emits Latin-1. In June 2026 it added a ThingsBoard integration, then extended it to self-hosted instances two days later.

Read the full wasserportal trajectory →

silx vs wasserportal: editorial side-by-side

S
silx
ANALYTICS
5.0

silx settles into maintenance a release after its PySide6 migration

◆ Current state

silx is in the quiet phase after a generational release. 3.1.1 is a single fix to FitWidget loading a fit function from file. The release before it, 3.1.0, was the first real feature work since the migration - asinh axis scaling, twilight colormaps, and dark-theme icons - and 3.0.1 was similarly small. The 3.0.0 cut that reset the Qt binding and Python floor still defines what the line is doing.

◆ Where it's heading

The cadence has slowed markedly since April, and the content has shifted from structural change to plotting and colormap refinement. That is the expected shape after a binding migration: downstream beamline code needs a stable target, so the project trades feature velocity for a quiet surface. The gap between 3.0.1 in May and 3.1.0 in August is the clearest signal of the deliberate slowdown.

◆ Prediction

Expect further point releases servicing the plotting and fitting widgets rather than another structural change, with feature work continuing to arrive in the 3.1.x minors rather than patches.

W
wasserportal
ANALYTICS
0.0

A Berlin groundwater scraper grew a full IoT publishing pipeline in two days.

◆ Current state

wasserportal scrapes groundwater and surface water monitoring data from Wasserportal Berlin — station metadata, water levels, quality series. For its first four years that was the whole product, with releases tracking the portal's own churn: a new API version in 2023, new three-letter variable codes, and a 2026 fix decoding pages as windows-1252 because the server declares UTF-8 but emits Latin-1. In June 2026 it added a ThingsBoard integration, then extended it to self-hosted instances two days later.

◆ Where it's heading

The package is repositioning from a data-access library into the first half of a monitoring pipeline. 0.6.0 shipped push helpers, device discovery and cleanup, an importable dashboard and a GitHub Actions workflow; 0.7.0 immediately generalised the authentication so it works against self-hosted Community Edition rather than only the Cloud tier, and lifted the push from a five-station demo to the entire groundwater archive. The hardening detail in 0.7.0 — retries on 5xx, warnings when only one of two credentials is set — reads like a maintainer who has run this against a real deployment.

◆ Prediction

The obvious next step is extending the ThingsBoard path to the surface water stations, which the package has flagged as under-supported since 0.1.0. The entries show no other direction under construction.

Alternatives to silx and wasserportal

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 silx or wasserportal.

See all silx alternatives → · See all wasserportal alternatives →

Recent activity from silx and wasserportal

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

  1. 5h agosilxFitWidget fix for loading a fit function from file
  2. 9d agosilx3.1.0: asinh axis scaling, twilight colormaps, dark-theme icons
  3. 2mo agowasserportalSelf-hosted ThingsBoard support via JWT login
  4. 2mo agowasserportalThingsBoard integration turns the scraper into a pipeline
  5. 3mo agowasserportalwindows-1252 decoding fixes umlaut handling on Windows
  6. 3mo agosilx3.0.1: silx view fails to disable HDF5 file locking
  7. 3mo agosilx3.0.0: PySide6 becomes the default Qt binding, Python 3.10 required
  8. 3mo agosilx3.0.0rc1: release candidate for the PySide6 migration
  9. 1y agosilx2.2.2: plot axes limits, OpenGL axes and libhdf5 1.14 fixes
  10. 3y agowasserportalExport and import functions for scraped datasets
  11. 3y agowasserportalAdapted to Wasserportal's new API version
  12. 4y agowasserportalTemperature parameter naming corrected

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between silx and wasserportal?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. silx is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 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 silx better than wasserportal?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. silx is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 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 Analytics products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to silx?

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

What are the best alternatives to wasserportal?

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