Software:Lavaan
| Original author(s) | Yves Rosseel |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Yves Rosseel (main developer) |
| Initial release | 11 May 2010 |
| Stable release | Version 0.6-21, Released on CRAN
/ 21 December 2025 |
| Repository | github |
| Written in | R |
| Operating system | Windows, Linux, macOS |
| Website | lavaan |
lavaan is an open-source structural equation modeling (SEM) package for the statistical programming language R. Created by Yves Rosseel in 2010, lavaan is intended to be a free open-source commercial-quality alternative to commercial (SEM) software packages such as Mplus or IBM SPSS Amos.[1][2]
Updates
On 11 May 2010 lavaan version 0.3-1 was released on CRAN, the original release of lavaan.[3]
On 21 February 2011 lavaan version 0.4-7 was released on CRAN, launching the 0.4 series of releases.[4]
On 8 September 2012 lavaan version 0.5-9 was released on CRAN, launching the 0.5 series of releases.[5]
On 22 May 2018 lavaan version 0.6-1 was released on CRAN, launching the 0.6 series of releases.[6]
On 21 December 2025 lavaan version 0.6-21 was released on CRAN, the most recent release of lavaan.[7]
Comparison with other SEM packages
A variety of open-source, free, and commercial structural equation modeling software packages are available besides lavaan, such as Amos, SAS PROC CALIS, R package sem, OpenMx, LISREL, EQS, and Mplus. The main difference between packages is the presence of a graphical interface for model specification and presentation of results. Each package differs in terms of its strengths and weaknesses. lavaan was shown to be feature equivalent to commercial packages, with a compact scripting capability even for complex models as a key strength, and the ability to mimic Mplus and EQS results as a special feature.[8]
Impact
After 15 years of being developed, lavaan has become one of the standard structural equation modeling software package of choice for many researchers and data scientists across the world; evidenced in its use in studies, part of software reviews, and published books.[8][9][10] It was downloaded more than 4 million times to date.[11]
References
- ↑ "About lavaan" (in en). https://lavaan.ugent.be.
- ↑ Rosseel, Yves (2012). "lavaan: An R Package for Structural Equation Modeling". Journal of Statistical Software (Foundation for Open Access Statistics) 48 (2): 1-36. http://www.jstatsoft.org/v48/i02/. Retrieved 2026-02-21.
- ↑ "0.3 series" (in en). https://lavaan.ugent.be/history/dot3.html.
- ↑ "0.4 series" (in en). https://lavaan.ugent.be/history/dot4.html.
- ↑ "0.5 series" (in en). https://lavaan.ugent.be/history/dot5.html.
- ↑ "0.6 series" (in en). https://lavaan.ugent.be/history/dot6.html.
- ↑ "0.6 series" (in en). https://lavaan.ugent.be/history/dot6.html.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Narayanan, A. (2012). "A Review of Eight Software Packages for Structural Equation Modeling". The American Statistician (Taylor & Francis) 66 (2): 129-138. doi:10.1080/00031305.2012.708641. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00031305.2012.708641. Retrieved 2026-02-21.
- ↑ Gana, Kamel; Broc, Guillaume (2019). Structural Equation Modeling with lavaan. Wiley. ISBN 9781119579038. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119579038. Retrieved 2026-02-21.
- ↑ Loh, W.W. (2025). "Causal Inference with Unobserved Confounding: Leveraging Negative Control Outcomes Using Lavaan". Multivariate Behavioral Research 60 (5): 1029–1041. doi:10.1080/00273171.2025.2507742. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119579038. Retrieved 2026-02-21.
- ↑ "CRAN R Packages by Number of Downloads" (in en). https://www.datasciencemeta.com/rpackages.
External links
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