tidytext
Finished, widely taught, and shipping roxygen fixes.
Comparison · Analytics
broom vs lime
A side-by-side editorial comparison of broom and lime — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:maintenance
broom vs lime: at a glance
What is broom?
broom's release calendar is now set by CRAN checks, not by new tidiers.
broom converts model objects from across R's statistical ecosystem into tidy data frames. Four of its last six releases exist purely to resolve R CMD check warnings and errors on r-devel or to absorb upstream package changes. Maintainership passed to Emil Hvitfeldt at 1.0.11.
What is lime?
lime survives on compatibility patches years after its research moment
lime brings local interpretable model-agnostic explanations to R. Its substantive development finished around 0.5.0 in 2019, which added argument pass-through to predict(), a gower_pow tuning knob and a batch of fixes. Since then there have been three releases: a namespace fix, a maintainer handover to Emil Hvitfeldt with general upkeep, and a patch to work across xgboost versions.
broom vs lime: editorial side-by-side
broom
0.0ANALYTICS
broom's release calendar is now set by CRAN checks, not by new tidiers.
◆ Current state
broom converts model objects from across R's statistical ecosystem into tidy data frames. Four of its last six releases exist purely to resolve R CMD check warnings and errors on r-devel or to absorb upstream package changes. Maintainership passed to Emil Hvitfeldt at 1.0.11.
◆ Where it's heading
Carrying hundreds of tidier methods for model classes it does not own, broom's workload is dominated by other projects' breaking changes and CRAN's evolving checks. New tidier coverage has largely migrated to the packages that define the models, leaving broom as a compatibility surface.
◆ Prediction
Expect the cadence to stay reactive, with releases triggered by r-devel check failures and upstream API shifts rather than expanded model coverage.
lime
0.0ANALYTICS
lime survives on compatibility patches years after its research moment
◆ Current state
lime brings local interpretable model-agnostic explanations to R. Its substantive development finished around 0.5.0 in 2019, which added argument pass-through to predict(), a gower_pow tuning knob and a batch of fixes. Since then there have been three releases: a namespace fix, a maintainer handover to Emil Hvitfeldt with general upkeep, and a patch to work across xgboost versions.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is in custodial maintenance — kept installable and compatible with the model packages it explains, rather than developed. The 2022 handover is the most consequential entry in the window because it determined that the package would keep getting patches at all.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next release to be another compatibility fix triggered by an upstream model package, not new explanation methods.
Alternatives to broom and lime
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 broom or lime.
textrecipes
Text features finally stay sparse all the way to the model.
probably
The package that made calibration a step instead of an afterthought.
workflowsets
workflowsets keeps widening what counts as a model worth comparing.
workflows
The tidymodels pipeline grew a third stage, and it happens after the model runs.
vetiver
Posit's MLOps package went quiet for two years, then came back to keep up with recipes.
Recent activity from broom and lime
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3mo agobroombroom 1.0.13 relocates a test fixture to clear an r-devel warning
- 3mo agobroombroom 1.0.12 tracks renamed summary() output fields
- 8mo agolimeCompatibility across all xgboost versions
- 8mo agobroombroom 1.0.11 transfers maintainership to Emil Hvitfeldt
- 11mo agobroombroom 1.0.10 clears an r-devel namespacing warning
- 1y agobroombroom 1.0.9 requires R 4.1 and repairs epiR compatibility
- 1y agobroombroom 1.0.8 fixes cluster-robust intervals, drops orcutt tidiers
- 3y agolimeMaintainer handover to Emil Hvitfeldt
- 5y agolimeorder() fix and lighter dependencies
- 6y agolimeNamespace fix following glmnet changes
- 7y agolimeexplain() gains pass-through args and gower_pow tuning
- 8y agolimeh2o support, NA handling and date feature types
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between broom and lime?
Both compete on the same themes — maintenance — within Analytics. broom and lime are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is broom better than lime?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. broom and lime are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to broom?
Top broom alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "broom alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/broom for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to lime?
Top lime alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "lime alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/lime-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.