afcharts
UK government chart styling in ggplot2, chasing ggplot2 v4 and stretching its palette to five.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
aftables vs Verdaccio
A side-by-side editorial comparison of aftables and Verdaccio — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
aftables vs Verdaccio: at a glance
What is aftables?
Accessible government spreadsheets in R, rebuilt on openxlsx2 and renamed along the way.
aftables generates spreadsheets that meet the UK Analysis Function's accessibility guidance, taking structured input and producing a formatted workbook with cover, contents, notes and table sheets. Version 2.0.0 replaced the workbook engine with openxlsx2 and added configuration through a config.yaml file, with create_config_yaml() exporting a template and generate_workbook() gaining arguments to point at it. The package was previously called a11ytables and was renamed in 1.0.2, with function names changed to match.
What is Verdaccio?
Verdaccio's 7.0 line is subtraction — forks dropped, toolchain swapped, tags mostly empty
The next-7 prerelease line is short and almost entirely maintenance. Its one substantive release adopted @verdaccio/server and deleted the local api, web, and storage forks, leaving a thin Storage wrapper behind only to keep callback-based storage plugins working. Everything since has been dependency retargeting, a lint and format toolchain swap, and a tag whose body reads 'chore: trigger release'.
aftables vs Verdaccio: editorial side-by-side
aftables
0.0INFRA · APIS
Accessible government spreadsheets in R, rebuilt on openxlsx2 and renamed along the way.
◆ Current state
aftables generates spreadsheets that meet the UK Analysis Function's accessibility guidance, taking structured input and producing a formatted workbook with cover, contents, notes and table sheets. Version 2.0.0 replaced the workbook engine with openxlsx2 and added configuration through a config.yaml file, with create_config_yaml() exporting a template and generate_workbook() gaining arguments to point at it. The package was previously called a11ytables and was renamed in 1.0.2, with function names changed to match.
◆ Where it's heading
The history reads in two phases. As a11ytables the work was about what belongs in an accessible spreadsheet, adding arbitrary pre-table metadata rows and enforcing rules such as rejecting tab titles that start with a numeral. Since the rename the work has been structural: a new backend, and configuration moved out of function arguments into a file that can be version-controlled and shared across a team. That second phase suits the audience, since government analysts producing recurring statistical releases want the same document properties applied every time rather than re-specified per run.
◆ Prediction
Expect the config.yaml surface to grow to cover more of what is currently passed as arguments, given it arrived alongside alternative author, title and keywords arguments that it plainly supersedes. With the openxlsx2 migration complete, further releases are likely to be formatting fixes surfaced by real departmental publications, as 2.0.1 already was.
Verdaccio
2.5INFRA · APIS
Verdaccio's 7.0 line is subtraction — forks dropped, toolchain swapped, tags mostly empty
◆ Current state
The next-7 prerelease line is short and almost entirely maintenance. Its one substantive release adopted @verdaccio/server and deleted the local api, web, and storage forks, leaving a thin Storage wrapper behind only to keep callback-based storage plugins working. Everything since has been dependency retargeting, a lint and format toolchain swap, and a tag whose body reads 'chore: trigger release'.
◆ Where it's heading
This is consolidation ahead of a major: the project is collapsing code it had been carrying in-tree back onto shared packages and standardising tooling around oxlint and oxfmt. The remaining compatibility shim is the visible unfinished business — it exists purely for legacy plugins, and it is the last thing standing between this line and a clean server dependency.
◆ Prediction
Removing the legacy storage wrapper is the decision this line is heading toward, and it breaks callback-based storage plugins when it lands, so expect it to arrive with the 7.0.0 final rather than in another next tag. Until then the prerelease stream will keep producing tags with no user-visible content.
Alternatives to aftables and Verdaccio
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 aftables or Verdaccio.
coga
A gamma-convolution density package that reached completion in 2018 and has coasted since.
smam
Animal-movement models in R, where new stochastic processes arrive years apart.
baseq
A basic DNA and RNA sequence toolkit that went quiet for three years, then jumped to 2.0.
pakret
Package citation for R documents, quietly growing to meet Quarto.
ShortForm
Automated scale shortening with lavaan, spending its releases repairing its own search algorithms.
See all aftables alternatives → · See all Verdaccio alternatives →
Recent activity from aftables and Verdaccio
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoVerdaccioVerdaccio 7.0.0-next-7.24 is an empty release-trigger tag
- 1mo agoVerdaccio7.0.0-next-7.23: oxlint and oxfmt replace eslint and prettier
- 2mo agoVerdaccio7.0.0-next-7.22: dependencies moved to the next-9 tag
- 2mo agoVerdaccio7.0.0-next-7.21: local api, web and storage forks dropped
- 4mo agoaftablesrlang import restored for older R versions
- 5mo agoaftablesWorkbook engine moved to openxlsx2; config.yaml introduced ⚡
- 1y agoaftablesPackage renamed from a11ytables to aftables
- 2y agoaftablesTab titles beginning with a numeral now rejected
- 2y agoaftablescustom_rows allows arbitrary pre-table metadata
- 2y agoaftablesTable count spelled out; README spelling corrected
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between aftables and Verdaccio?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Verdaccio 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 aftables better than Verdaccio?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Verdaccio 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 aftables?
Top aftables alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "aftables alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/aftables for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Verdaccio?
Top Verdaccio alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Verdaccio alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/verdaccio for the full list with editorial commentary on each.