n2kanalysis
n2kanalysis has spent eight years wiring INLA models to an S3 bucket.
Comparison · Analytics
APCalign vs mapSpain
A side-by-side editorial comparison of APCalign and mapSpain — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
APCalign vs mapSpain: at a glance
What is APCalign?
APCalign spent this year fixing the counts it had been quietly getting wrong
APCalign standardises Australian plant names against the APC and APNI taxonomic resources and derives state-level native/introduced status from them. The feed is GitHub releases tagged by resource download date rather than semantic version, so titles carry no information about content. The two 2026 releases are the only substantive ones in the window: infrataxa support in the diversity functions, then a fix for a grep that had been matching the wrong columns.
What is mapSpain?
mapSpain's 1.0.0 broke every user cache to get the package onto modern foundations.
mapSpain provides administrative boundaries, tile providers and geographic dictionaries for Spain, pulling from GISCO, SIANE, INE and IGN sources. The 1.0.0 release in January 2026 rebuilt it: requests moved to httr2, the cache reorganized into topic-based subfolders under tools::R_user_dir() instead of rappdirs, R 4.1 became the floor, and every function now returns tidy objects. Existing caches are explicitly incompatible and must be rebuilt.
APCalign vs mapSpain: editorial side-by-side
APCalign
2.5ANALYTICS
APCalign spent this year fixing the counts it had been quietly getting wrong
◆ Current state
APCalign standardises Australian plant names against the APC and APNI taxonomic resources and derives state-level native/introduced status from them. The feed is GitHub releases tagged by resource download date rather than semantic version, so titles carry no information about content. The two 2026 releases are the only substantive ones in the window: infrataxa support in the diversity functions, then a fix for a grep that had been matching the wrong columns.
◆ Where it's heading
Development is driven by users reporting that outputs do not match what they expect, and the fixes keep landing in the same two functions — create_species_state_origin_matrix() and native_anywhere_in_australia(). The infrataxa parameter and the reordered output columns came from user requests; the guard-ordering and grep fixes came from a filed issue. What is emerging is that the origin-matrix logic was written loosely and is now being tightened case by case, with tests and state diversity benchmarks added alongside.
◆ Prediction
Both recent releases touched the same pair of functions and the fixes were found by inspection rather than by tests failing, so more corrections in the native-status path are the likely next content — the benchmarks added in March are the mechanism that would surface them.
mapSpain
0.0ANALYTICS
mapSpain's 1.0.0 broke every user cache to get the package onto modern foundations.
◆ Current state
mapSpain provides administrative boundaries, tile providers and geographic dictionaries for Spain, pulling from GISCO, SIANE, INE and IGN sources. The 1.0.0 release in January 2026 rebuilt it: requests moved to httr2, the cache reorganized into topic-based subfolders under tools::R_user_dir() instead of rappdirs, R 4.1 became the floor, and every function now returns tidy objects. Existing caches are explicitly incompatible and must be rebuilt.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has finished its modernization and moved into consolidation. 1.1.0 added a configurable query timeout and pinned httr2 for compatibility with giscoR, the sibling package it shares plumbing with; 1.2.0 was a declared internal-only refactor with the public API held fixed and the work described as AI-assisted with human review. The data-source expansion that characterized the 0.9.x and 0.10.x line — comarcas by type, simplified INE geometries, SIANE vintages — has paused while the foundations settle.
◆ Prediction
Expect a return to source coverage now that the refactor is done: new SIANE or INE vintages and additional boundary types are the pattern this package has repeated. The entries show no further architectural work queued.
Alternatives to APCalign and mapSpain
Other Analytics 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 APCalign or mapSpain.
n1qn1c
A Fortran-descended optimizer got thread-safe, then found two flags that never worked.
ggstatsplot
ggstatsplot reached 1.0 by adding tests, having outsourced its statistics years ago.
collapse
collapse got a JSS paper and a 7x fmean speedup in the same release.
gtsummary
gtsummary is quietly rebuilding itself around analysis results data, one table verb at a time.
broadcast
broadcast is filling in NumPy-style array broadcasting for R, operator by operator.
See all APCalign alternatives → · See all mapSpain alternatives →
Recent activity from APCalign and mapSpain
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 16d agoAPCalignAPCalign fixes a grep that scanned taxon names for native status
- 1mo agomapSpainInternal helper refactor with the public API held fixed
- 4mo agomapSpainQuery timeout becomes configurable
- 4mo agoAPCalignAPCalign adds infrataxa to the state origin and diversity functions
- 7mo agomapSpain1.0.0 rebuilds on httr2 and invalidates every cache ⚡
- 1y agomapSpainComarcas and simplified INE geometries added
- 1y agomapSpainComarca types split across four official sources
- 1y agoAPCalignTaxonomic resource snapshot from APC and APNI
- 1y agoAPCalignRelease tags switch to APC download date
- 1y agoAPCalignFix for the quiet option
- 1y agomapSpainAdapted to the SIANE 2024 databases
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between APCalign and mapSpain?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. APCalign 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 APCalign better than mapSpain?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. APCalign 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 Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to APCalign?
Top APCalign alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "APCalign alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/apcalign-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to mapSpain?
Top mapSpain alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "mapSpain alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mapspain for the full list with editorial commentary on each.