rnaturalearth
rnaturalearth finished its sp exit and is now optimising how the data actually arrives.
Comparison · Analytics
butcher vs writexl
A side-by-side editorial comparison of butcher and writexl — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
butcher vs writexl: at a glance
What is butcher?
butcher expands from trimming models to trimming whole tidymodels workflows
butcher strips the parts of fitted R model objects that bloat serialized size without being needed for prediction, and it grows one method family at a time. The 0.3.x line piled up coverage for MASS, klaR, mixOmics, ipred, survival and xgboost objects; 0.4.0 changes the target from individual models to resampling and tuning containers, and hands maintenance to Max Kuhn.
What is writexl?
writexl spent nine years refusing to do formatting, then shipped all of it in 2.0.0.
For most of its history writexl was a deliberately minimal wrapper: bump the vendored libxlsxwriter, handle NA and Date coercion correctly, support a list of data frames for multiple sheets, and nothing else. 2.0.0, released August 2026, changes that — near-full libxlsxwriter coverage, cell/worksheet/workbook formatting, cell comments, an `xl_cell_general` class carrying value, formula and hyperlink, a cell-by-cell refactor, libxlsxwriter 1.2.4, and memory-safety work. It landed the same day as 1.5.4, a typo fix on the old line.
butcher vs writexl: editorial side-by-side
butcher
0.0ANALYTICS
butcher expands from trimming models to trimming whole tidymodels workflows
◆ Current state
butcher strips the parts of fitted R model objects that bloat serialized size without being needed for prediction, and it grows one method family at a time. The 0.3.x line piled up coverage for MASS, klaR, mixOmics, ipred, survival and xgboost objects; 0.4.0 changes the target from individual models to resampling and tuning containers, and hands maintenance to Max Kuhn.
◆ Where it's heading
Coverage is following where tidymodels users actually accumulate size — rset, rsplit, tune_results and workflow_set objects are the things that get large in a tuning run, not single fits. The maintainer handoff points the package further into the tidymodels orbit rather than the broad model zoo it started as. Releases are otherwise small and fix-driven.
◆ Prediction
Expect further methods for tidymodels container classes and continued upkeep against xgboost and torch-backed engines; the entries show no move toward automatic size reporting or a different API.
writexl
6.3ANALYTICS
writexl spent nine years refusing to do formatting, then shipped all of it in 2.0.0.
◆ Current state
For most of its history writexl was a deliberately minimal wrapper: bump the vendored libxlsxwriter, handle NA and Date coercion correctly, support a list of data frames for multiple sheets, and nothing else. 2.0.0, released August 2026, changes that — near-full libxlsxwriter coverage, cell/worksheet/workbook formatting, cell comments, an `xl_cell_general` class carrying value, formula and hyperlink, a cell-by-cell refactor, libxlsxwriter 1.2.4, and memory-safety work. It landed the same day as 1.5.4, a typo fix on the old line.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has changed category. Its selling point was being the dependency-free, opinion-free way to get a data frame into xlsx; 2.0.0 makes it a formatting-capable writer that now compares itself against openxlsx2 in its own test suite. The cell-by-cell refactor is what made that possible and is also the largest structural change in the package's history. Note that a single contributor drove essentially all of it.
◆ Prediction
Expect follow-up releases fixing edge cases in the new formatting and comment APIs — the cell-by-cell rewrite is too large to land clean, and the 2.0.0 notes already mention an off-by-one in date columns.
Alternatives to butcher and writexl
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 butcher or writexl.
rgbif
rgbif is steadily pushing users off paged searching and onto real downloads.
rstanarm
rstanarm is community-maintained now, tracking Stan and lme4 rather than adding models.
taxa
taxa started a ground-up rewrite in 2021 and has published almost nothing since.
rotl
rotl's whole release history is keeping name matching honest against a moving taxonomy.
taxize
taxize spends its releases absorbing other people's API changes, one dead source at a time.
See all butcher alternatives → · See all writexl alternatives →
Recent activity from butcher and writexl
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8d agowritexlwritexl 2.0.0 adds formatting, comments and full libxlsxwriter coverage ⚡
- 8d agowritexlwritexl 1.5.4 fixes a documentation typo
- 8mo agobutcherMethods for rset, tune_results and workflow_set; new maintainer
- 11mo agobutcherkknn methods no longer remove the call
- 1y agobutcherComponent existence check fixed; nestedmodels methods removed
- 2y agobutcherbutcher 0.3.4
- 2y agobutcherMethods for nestedmodels and mgcv::gam; clearer butchering messages
- 3y agobutcherEight new model families gain butcher methods
- 5y agowritexlwritexl 1.4.0 updates libxlsxwriter to 1.0.3
- 6y agowritexlwritexl 1.2 fixes NA in formulas and hyperlinks
- 7y agowritexlwritexl 1.1 fixes NA strings and bit64 coercion
- 8y agowritexlwritexl 1.0 writes Date values as datetimes
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between butcher and writexl?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. writexl is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 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 butcher better than writexl?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. writexl is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 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 butcher?
Top butcher alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "butcher alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/butcher for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to writexl?
Top writexl alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "writexl alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/writexl for the full list with editorial commentary on each.