Wikipedia

Draft:Lavaan

lavaan
Original authorYves Rosseel
DeveloperYves Rosseel (main developer)
Release11 May 2010; 16 years ago (2010-05-11)
Stable release
Version 0.6-21, Released on CRAN / 21 December 2025; 6 months ago (2025-12-21)
Written inR
Operating system Windows, Linux, macOS
Websitelavaan.ugent.be
Repositorygithub.com/yrosseel/lavaan

lavaan, short for "Latent variable analysis"[1], is an open-source structural equation modeling (SEM) package for the statistical programming language R.[2] Created in 2010 by Yves Rosseel, now a full professor at the Department of Data Analysis, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University[3], lavaan is intended to be a free open-source commercial-quality alternative to commercial SEM software packages such as Mplus or IBM SPSS Amos.[2][4]

Comparison with other SEM packages

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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.[5][6] Its main weaknesses are lack of an integrated graphical user interface and limited options to handle missing data.[5]

Impact

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At present, lavaan is considered one of the standard structural equation modeling software packages used by researchers when conducting both observational and experimental research; evidenced in its use in studies, part of software reviews, and published books.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

It was downloaded more than 5 million times to date.[13]

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Several R packages were developed that complement lavaan, such as:

  • lavaangui: a graphical user interface for the R package lavaan in order to create and visualize lavaan models.[14][15]
  • lavaanPlot: an extension of lavaan to allow ploting of lavaan models.[16]
  • blavaan: an R package, co-developed by Yves Rosseel, for Bayesian latent variable analysis built upon the lavaan package.[17]
  • bmemLavaan: an R package for estimating and testing mediation effects in models specified by lavaan.[18]

References

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  1. ↑ "Package: lavaan 0.7-1.2688". rOpenSci. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  2. 1 2 Rosseel, Yves (2012). "lavaan: An R Package for Structural Equation Modeling". Journal of Statistical Software. 48 (2). Foundation for Open Access Statistics: 1–36. Retrieved 2026-02-21.
  3. ↑ "Prof. Dr. Yves Rosseel". Academie UGent. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  4. ↑ "About lavaan". The lavaan project. Retrieved 2026-02-21.
  5. 1 2 3 Narayanan, A. (2012). "A Review of Eight Software Packages for Structural Equation Modeling". The American Statistician. 66 (2). Taylor & Francis: 129–138. doi:10.1080/00031305.2012.708641. Retrieved 2026-02-21.
  6. 1 2 El-Sheikh, Ahmed A.; Abonazel, Mohamed R.; Gamil, Noha (2017). "A Review of Software Packages for Structural Equation Modeling: A Comparative Study". Applied Mathematics and Physics. 5 (3). Science and Education Publishing: 85–94. Retrieved 2026-02-21.
  7. ↑ Gana, Kamel; Broc, Guillaume (2019). Structural Equation Modeling with lavaan. Wiley. ISBN 9781119579038. Retrieved 2026-02-21.
  8. ↑ 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. Retrieved 2026-02-21.
  9. ↑ Martínez, I.A.M.; Flores, C.G.C.; Nava, V.X.; Rivera, B.R.G. (2024). "Free VS. Paid Software in Strutural Modeling: Results from Amos and R Studio Lavaan in Organizational Climate Analysis". RGSA : Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental. 18 (11): e010053-21. doi:10.24857/rgsa.v18n11-247. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  10. ↑ Corbelli, Giuseppe (2026). "Multiplicity Control for Structural Equation Modeling in Lavaan : A Practical Workflow for False Discovery Rate Adjustment". Educational and Psychological Measurement. SAGE Publications. doi:10.1177/00131644261442141. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  11. ↑ Osei, I.; Carie, C.A.; Anamalamudi, S.; Boadu, D.; Kwakye, M. (2026). "Structural equation modelling in R: Comparing lavaan and seminr packages". Methodological Innovations. SAGE Publications. doi:10.1177/20597991261445104. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  12. ↑ Bryant, F.B.; Satorra, A. (2026). "Comparing Methods of Maximum Likelihood and Unweighted Least-Squares Estimation Across Structural Equation Modeling Software Programs". Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal. 33 (2). Taylor & Francis: 323–334. doi:10.1080/10705511.2025.2557445. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
  13. ↑ "CRAN R Packages by Number of Downloads". datasciencemeta.com. Retrieved 2026-06-04.
  14. ↑ "lavaangui: A Visual Tool for Creating lavaan Models (CFA, SEM, Path Analysis) in R". RegorzStatistik. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  15. ↑ Karch, J.D. (2025). "lavaangui: A Web-Based Graphical Interface for Specifying Lavaan Models by Drawing Path Diagrams". Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal. 32 (6). Taylor & Francis: 1077–1088. doi:10.1080/10705511.2024.2420678. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
  16. ↑ "Intro to lavaanPlot". lavaanplot.alexlishinski.com. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  17. ↑ "blavaan". blavaan.org. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  18. ↑ "bmemLavaan: An Package for Estimating and Testing Mediation Effect in Mediation Models" (PDF). cran.r-project.org. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
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