rollupTree
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Comparison · Infra & APIs
afcharts vs checkhelper
A side-by-side editorial comparison of afcharts and checkhelper — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
afcharts vs checkhelper: at a glance
What is afcharts?
UK government chart styling in ggplot2, chasing ggplot2 v4 and stretching its palette to five.
afcharts supplies the UK Analysis Function's chart styling for ggplot2, as a theme, colour and fill scales, and a use_afcharts() call that applies the styling globally. Version 0.5.1 extends the sequential palette to five shades so it can carry quintile data such as deprivation bands, renames the na_colour argument to na.value, and adds a reset argument to switch the styling back off. The package began as a first release derived from sgplot and has had three releases in roughly two years.
What is checkhelper?
checkhelper grew from a check wrapper into a CRAN pre-submission auditor.
1.0.0 added a whole audit_* family — audit_downloads(), audit_description(), audit_dontrun() and audit_citation() — each parsing package source statically and returning a tibble of hits paired with a suggested fix. The package is now defending that position: 1.0.1 rc1 is a submission candidate answering a CRAN archival notice, after roxygen2 8.x moved DESCRIPTION's RoxygenNote field and broke a find_missing_tags() test fixture.
afcharts vs checkhelper: editorial side-by-side
afcharts
0.0INFRA · APIS
UK government chart styling in ggplot2, chasing ggplot2 v4 and stretching its palette to five.
◆ Current state
afcharts supplies the UK Analysis Function's chart styling for ggplot2, as a theme, colour and fill scales, and a use_afcharts() call that applies the styling globally. Version 0.5.1 extends the sequential palette to five shades so it can carry quintile data such as deprivation bands, renames the na_colour argument to na.value, and adds a reset argument to switch the styling back off. The package began as a first release derived from sgplot and has had three releases in roughly two years.
◆ Where it's heading
The work splits between palette design and keeping the styling composable. On the design side the sequential palette growing to five shades is driven by a specific reporting need rather than aesthetics, since quintiles are a standard unit in UK official statistics. On the mechanical side, the na.value rename was forced by ggplot2 v4.0.1, theme_af() now respects options set by an earlier use_afcharts() call, and a reset argument acknowledges that global styling needs an off switch. These are the problems a styling package hits once people use it inside larger documents.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued adjustment to ggplot2 v4, since the na.value rename is unlikely to be the only argument affected, and further palette work driven by the reporting formats government analysts actually publish. As a sibling to aftables in the same Analysis Function family, it is likely to keep tracking that guidance rather than setting its own direction.
checkhelper
2.5INFRA · APIS
checkhelper grew from a check wrapper into a CRAN pre-submission auditor.
◆ Current state
1.0.0 added a whole audit_* family — audit_downloads(), audit_description(), audit_dontrun() and audit_citation() — each parsing package source statically and returning a tibble of hits paired with a suggested fix. The package is now defending that position: 1.0.1 rc1 is a submission candidate answering a CRAN archival notice, after roxygen2 8.x moved DESCRIPTION's RoxygenNote field and broke a find_missing_tags() test fixture.
◆ Where it's heading
The design commitment is static analysis — AST walks via getParseData(), line-by-line Rd reading, no eval() and no namespace loading — so the tool can report on a package it never runs. That commitment is what made the roxygen2 8.x break survivable: the audit pipeline itself was verified correct under 8.1.0 and only the test scaffolding had to go, now guarded by a dedicated regression test. fix_globals(write = TRUE) is being sanded down in parallel, no longer flattening per-function grouping comments or writing a degenerate empty globalVariables() shell.
◆ Prediction
The immediate move is the 1.0.1 submission itself, clearing the archival notice. Beyond that, each additional CRAN incoming-check rule remains a candidate for another audit_* function; the open question these notes still leave is whether the family ever gets a single combined entry point.
Alternatives to afcharts and checkhelper
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 afcharts or checkhelper.
massProps
A mass-properties rollup spends a year on documentation and follows its sibling's API
writeAlizer
Six months of releases and not one of them touched the scoring models
samplr
A cognitive-science sampling package ships once, then goes quiet for eighteen months
stochvol
A Bayesian volatility sampler in its maintenance decade, paying for its own speed
midr
A black-box interpreter reaches CRAN, then learns multi-class and survival responses
See all afcharts alternatives → · See all checkhelper alternatives →
Recent activity from afcharts and checkhelper
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agocheckhelpercheckhelper 1.0.1 rc1 (CRAN submission candidate)
- 3mo agocheckhelperA static audit_* family for CRAN pre-submission checks ⚡
- 5mo agoafchartsSequential palette reaches five shades for quintile data
- 1y agoafchartsNamespace and argument-passing fixes
- 1y agoafchartsFirst release, derived from sgplot
- 2y agocheckhelperTest fixes for roxygen2 changes
- 3y agocheckhelpercheckhelper 0.1.0 - First CRAN Release
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between afcharts and checkhelper?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. checkhelper is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is afcharts better than checkhelper?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. checkhelper is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to afcharts?
Top afcharts alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "afcharts alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/afcharts for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to checkhelper?
Top checkhelper alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "checkhelper alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/checkhelper for the full list with editorial commentary on each.