.. _alternatives:

Alternatives
============

There are several packages with similar goals as WrightTools.
None of them replace everything WrightTools does, but each of them overlaps with one of WrightTools' main features:

- focus on spectroscopy
- multidimensional
- self-describing data formats
- openly licensed & freely available

Some of these packages are focused on adjacent analytical techniques that have different conventions than multidimensional spectroscopy.
Others are focused on spectroscopy, but with a different approach than WrightTools.
Others are more generic, and don't have the conventions of any particular experimental strategy built in.
All of them are really cool!
Your project may be better served by one of them:

- glue_
- gridded_
- Gwyddion_
- hyperspy_
- nmrglue_
- PyTrA_
- scikit-spectra_
- specutils_
- xarray_

Of course there are also the "default" python data-science structures:

- numpy ndarray_
- pandas DataFrame_

Those with general interest in array-oriented scientific data should be aware of hdf5_ and netcdf_.

.. _DataFrame: https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/generated/pandas.DataFrame.html
.. _glue: http://www.glueviz.org
.. _gridded: https://noaa-orr-erd.github.io/gridded/
.. _Gwyddion: http://gwyddion.net/
.. _hyperspy: http://hyperspy.org/
.. _ndarray: https://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html
.. _hdf5: https://portal.hdfgroup.org/display/HDF5/HDF5
.. _netcdf: https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/
.. _nmrglue: http://www.nmrglue.com/
.. _PyTrA: http://nznano.blogspot.com/2012/06/pytra-femtosecond-transient-absorption.html
.. _scikit-spectra: http://hugadams.github.io/scikit-spectra/
.. _specutils: http://specutils.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
.. _xarray: http://xarray.pydata.org/
