Phitter Blog
Guides and a verified public record of Phitter’s development, publications, and use in research.
Read the ideas behind Phitter, learn the fitting workflow, and follow the project’s appearances in open-source and academic work.
General
What is Phitter?
The purpose, architecture, and statistical scope of Phitter in one concise introduction.
Guide
How to use Phitter
Two paths through the same fitting engine: a zero-install web workflow and a compact Python API.
Guide
Articles
Kolmogorov–Smirnov, Anderson–Darling and chi-square
Read the tests with their assumptions, distinguish unavailable results from non-rejections and combine diagnostics with plots.
Article
Choosing between continuous and discrete distributions
The decision belongs to the process that generated the data, not to how the numbers happen to be stored.
Article
Fitting distributions for Monte Carlo simulation
Compare fitted models at the quantiles your simulation needs and report sensitivity to tail assumptions and dependence.
Article
A reproducible fit, end to end
A seeded dataset and an executable script, with checked results, recorded versions and an explanation of the ranking.
Article
How to read a ranking without trusting the first row
In a real fit on lognormal data, the top-ranked model was not the lognormal — and the model that was had better test statistics.
Article
How to choose distribution fitting software
Choose a browser, Python, Excel or simulation workflow, compare documented features and check the evidence behind a fitted model.
Comparison · sources checked 9 September 2026
News
Phitter’s JOSS paper
The permanent scholarly record for citing Phitter: publication details, public review, and DOI.
JOSS · 2 June 2025
Phitter in William & Mary’s distribution resources
William & Mary’s probability-distribution reference site lists Phitter among its links of interest.
William & Mary · verified 27 August 2026
Phitter used in road-construction risk research
A research team used Phitter to turn expert risk ratings into fitted inputs for a Monte Carlo study of road projects in Tanzania.
Journal of Engineering · 12 June 2026