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Comparison · Infra & APIs
statsExpressions vs stochvol
A side-by-side editorial comparison of statsExpressions and stochvol — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:maintenance
statsExpressions vs stochvol: at a glance
What is statsExpressions?
A statistics backend whose release history is mostly other people's weather
statsExpressions produces the tidy dataframes and plotmath expressions that ggstatsplot prints onto plots, and that position defines its changelog. Six of its ten most recent versions exist to absorb API changes in easystats, dplyr or purrr. Version 2.0.0 is the exception, cut to accompany ggstatsplot's own 1.0.0 and carrying pairwise Fisher's exact post hocs for contingency tables.
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.
statsExpressions vs stochvol: editorial side-by-side
statsExpressions
0.0INFRA · APIS
A statistics backend whose release history is mostly other people's weather
◆ Current state
statsExpressions produces the tidy dataframes and plotmath expressions that ggstatsplot prints onto plots, and that position defines its changelog. Six of its ten most recent versions exist to absorb API changes in easystats, dplyr or purrr. Version 2.0.0 is the exception, cut to accompany ggstatsplot's own 1.0.0 and carrying pairwise Fisher's exact post hocs for contingency tables.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a component settling into place beneath a larger package rather than a product with its own roadmap. New statistical content arrives rarely and narrowly — an exact-p toggle, one post-hoc function — while the recurring work is keeping expressions correct as the easystats stack shifts underneath. The one bug class it keeps returning to is rendering: p-values of exactly zero, decimal commas that plotmath parses as list separators.
◆ Prediction
Coupled this tightly, the next release is most likely another compatibility pass timed to an easystats or ggstatsplot version rather than new tests. Nothing in these entries signals an independent feature direction.
stochvol
0.0INFRA · APIS
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 statsExpressions 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 statsExpressions or stochvol.
PINstimation
A market-microstructure toolkit that keeps adding estimators as the papers land.
nzilbb.vowels
A vowel-analysis package trimming dependencies after an email address got it archived.
emuR
The R half of the EMU speech database system, fixing what was quietly broken.
BAS
A Bayesian model-averaging package spending its 2.0 on memory, not methods.
tidyplots
tidyplots keeps rebuilding its own foundations rather than layering around them.
See all statsExpressions alternatives → · See all stochvol alternatives →
Recent activity from statsExpressions and stochvol
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3mo agostatsExpressionsPairwise Fisher's post hocs for contingency tables
- 4mo agostatsExpressionsInternal maintenance only, no user-facing changes
- 5mo agostochvolSampler crash with constant parameters fixed, plus RcppArmadillo 15
- 6mo agostatsExpressionsAdapts to dplyr 1.2.0 and purrr 1.2.1
- 6mo agostatsExpressionsAdapts to changes in the easystats packages
- 1y agostochvolTwo CRAN check notes cleared
- 1y agostatsExpressionsFixes p-value rendering when p is exactly zero
- 1y agostatsExpressionscentrality_description() follows the new easystats API
- 1y agostochvolProposal variance corrected in the centered parameterisation
- 2y agostochvolCRAN stochvol 3.2.4
- 2y agostochvolRolling-window indexing and inverse gamma prior validation fixed
- 3y agostochvolCore C++ sampler routines exported for reuse
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between statsExpressions and stochvol?
Both compete on the same themes — maintenance — within Infra & APIs. statsExpressions and stochvol 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 statsExpressions better than stochvol?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. statsExpressions and stochvol 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 Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to statsExpressions?
Top statsExpressions alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "statsExpressions alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/statsexpressions 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.