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Comparison · Infra & APIs
ipeaplot vs stochvol
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ipeaplot and stochvol — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
ipeaplot vs stochvol: at a glance
What is ipeaplot?
An institutional chart theme whose recent releases are all vignette repair.
ipeaplot supplies Ipea's house style to ggplot2 — theme_ipea(), matching colour and fill scales, and export helpers that write the formats the institute's publications need. The feature line has been quiet since October, when save_ipeaplot() consolidated the format-specific savers. Both July releases exist to get the package building again, not to change it.
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.
ipeaplot vs stochvol: editorial side-by-side
ipeaplot
0.0INFRA · APIS
An institutional chart theme whose recent releases are all vignette repair.
◆ Current state
ipeaplot supplies Ipea's house style to ggplot2 — theme_ipea(), matching colour and fill scales, and export helpers that write the formats the institute's publications need. The feature line has been quiet since October, when save_ipeaplot() consolidated the format-specific savers. Both July releases exist to get the package building again, not to change it.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has been converging on a smaller, more uniform surface: separate save_eps() and save_pdf() helpers gave way to one save_ipeaplot() covering vector and raster formats with sensible defaults, and the Frutiger font dependency was dropped for a default sans-serif. What consumes releases now is downstream breakage — two consecutive patches in ten days, the second traced to geobr, both in vignettes rather than package code.
◆ Prediction
The palette line has grown one colour set at a time and is the most likely place for the next addition, but nothing in these entries commits to it. On current evidence the near term is more compatibility patching against the geobr and ggplot2 packages the vignettes depend on.
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 ipeaplot 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 ipeaplot 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 ipeaplot alternatives → · See all stochvol alternatives →
Recent activity from ipeaplot and stochvol
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoipeaplotVignette fix for geobr breakage
- 1mo agoipeaplotPatch for a vignette build error
- 5mo agostochvolSampler crash with constant parameters fixed, plus RcppArmadillo 15
- 10mo agoipeaplotsave_ipeaplot() unifies vector and raster export
- 1y agostochvolTwo CRAN check notes cleared
- 1y agoipeaplotPink palette added; axis break and categorical Y-axis fixes
- 1y agostochvolProposal variance corrected in the centered parameterisation
- 1y agoipeaplotFrutiger dropped for a default sans-serif; save_pdf() added
- 2y agoipeaplottheme_ipea, colour and fill scales, save_eps on CRAN
- 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 ipeaplot and stochvol?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ipeaplot 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 ipeaplot better than stochvol?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ipeaplot 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 ipeaplot?
Top ipeaplot alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ipeaplot alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ipeaplot 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.