silx
silx settles into maintenance a release after its PySide6 migration
Comparison · Analytics
Holistics vs stacks
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Holistics and stacks — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Holistics vs stacks: at a glance
What is Holistics?
Holistics is adding governance to the AI layer it spent the summer building.
Holistics ships small, frequent notes - often one or two sentences - covering three strands at once: AI features in Explore and Chat, as-code control over presentation through AML, and workspace hygiene like file history and dark mode. The August entries turn to the AI layer's edges rather than its capabilities, with an AI user attribute for restricting what the assistant can reach. Several entries are barely a line long, so scope frequently has to be read from the headline.
What is stacks?
Model stacking in tidymodels, quietly migrating off foreach and onto future
stacks builds ensembles from tidymodels tuning results, and its release history is dominated by one long project: replacing foreach-based parallelism with the future framework. That transition completed in 1.1.0, where foreach backends began being ignored with a warning and the minimum R version rose to 4.1. Releases are infrequent and small, with the most recent being a CRAN re-submission rather than a change.
Holistics vs stacks: editorial side-by-side
Holistics
5.0ANALYTICS
Holistics is adding governance to the AI layer it spent the summer building.
◆ Current state
Holistics ships small, frequent notes - often one or two sentences - covering three strands at once: AI features in Explore and Chat, as-code control over presentation through AML, and workspace hygiene like file history and dark mode. The August entries turn to the AI layer's edges rather than its capabilities, with an AI user attribute for restricting what the assistant can reach. Several entries are barely a line long, so scope frequently has to be read from the headline.
◆ Where it's heading
The AI work has moved through a recognizable sequence: capability first with chart suggestions, then observability with AI Chat Insights for admins, and now access control with an AI-specific user attribute. Alongside it, Holistics keeps pulling presentation into AML - custom charts, theme palettes, currency formats - so the things analysts used to click are versioned as code. File history is the join between the two threads, giving every dashboard, model, and dataset its own restorable timeline.
◆ Prediction
With capability, visibility, and access control now in place for the AI layer, the next step is likely audit or policy depth - logging what the assistant answered against which data - rather than new AI surfaces.
stacks
0.0ANALYTICS
Model stacking in tidymodels, quietly migrating off foreach and onto future
◆ Current state
stacks builds ensembles from tidymodels tuning results, and its release history is dominated by one long project: replacing foreach-based parallelism with the future framework. That transition completed in 1.1.0, where foreach backends began being ignored with a warning and the minimum R version rose to 4.1. Releases are infrequent and small, with the most recent being a CRAN re-submission rather than a change.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is mature and its remaining work is compatibility rather than capability — tracking the parallelism story across tidymodels, keeping object sizes sane after butchering and reloading, and staying aligned with recipes deprecations. The augment() method added for vetiver compatibility shows the same instinct: fit into the surrounding ecosystem rather than grow independently of it. Nothing in the visible history suggests new ensembling methods are being pursued.
◆ Prediction
With the future migration finished, the next release is most likely maintenance keeping pace with tune and recipes rather than anything users would notice.
Alternatives to Holistics and stacks
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 Holistics or stacks.
Plotly
Plotly is turning its cloud into a metered compute platform with an enterprise on-ramp.
aniread
aniread stops asking you to know which tracker wrote the file
Rho
Rho's release machinery finally produced a stable build — and it shipped no new product.
Usermaven
Usermaven closed the loop: data comes in from anywhere, and now it goes back out.
OpenCTI
OpenCTI spends a release unblocking queues and hardening upserts
See all Holistics alternatives → · See all stacks alternatives →
Recent activity from Holistics and stacks
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoHolisticsAI user attribute restricts AI access to sensitive data
- 16d agoHolisticsCustom currency and unit formats, per field
- 19d agoHolisticsFile history: per-file version timeline and restore
- 22d agoHolisticsCustom charts become AML code with GUI authoring
- 23d agoHolisticsColor palettes can be assigned at the theme level
- 27d agoHolisticsDate-range presets and typed shorthands
- 1y agostacksstacks 1.1.1 re-released to clear a CRAN check note
- 1y agostacksstacks 1.1.0 completes the move to future-based parallelism
- 2y agostacksstacks 1.0.5 fixes butchered stack size inflation
- 2y agostacksstacks 1.0.4 introduces future-based parallel processing
- 2y agostacksstacks 1.0.3 clears recipes deprecations and a type-check bug
- 3y agostacksstacks 1.0.2 adds an augment() method for vetiver compatibility
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Holistics and stacks?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Holistics 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 Holistics better than stacks?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Holistics 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 Holistics?
Top Holistics alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Holistics alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/holistics for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to stacks?
Top stacks alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "stacks alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/stacks for the full list with editorial commentary on each.