ggfootball
A football-viz package just swapped scraping for an API and broke its own output to do it.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
campsis vs samplr
A side-by-side editorial comparison of campsis and samplr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
campsis vs samplr: at a glance
What is campsis?
Campsis breaks its API on purpose: snake_case throughout, RxODE compatibility cut loose.
Campsis runs clinical-trial simulations from pharmacometric models, sitting on mrgsolve and rxode2 as interchangeable engines, with the sibling package Campsismod supplying the model object layer. Version 1.9.0 is the release where the suite stops carrying its history: the whole API migrates to snake_case, backward compatibility with the old RxODE package is removed, and result processing is refactored into output functions that can be applied as a collection, with an NCA table the first substantial one. Campsismod made the same snake_case move a week earlier, so this is a suite-wide rename rather than one package's decision.
What is samplr?
A cognitive-science sampling package ships once, then goes quiet for eighteen months
samplr compares human performance against sampling algorithms, giving cognitive scientists the MCMC machinery to test whether people behave like samplers. Its entire public history is three releases: a 1.0.0 in August 2024, a floating-point fix eighteen seconds later, and then nothing until a February 2026 patch. The release notes are unusually thin even by CRAN standards.
campsis vs samplr: editorial side-by-side
campsis
3.8INFRA · APIS
Campsis breaks its API on purpose: snake_case throughout, RxODE compatibility cut loose.
◆ Current state
Campsis runs clinical-trial simulations from pharmacometric models, sitting on mrgsolve and rxode2 as interchangeable engines, with the sibling package Campsismod supplying the model object layer. Version 1.9.0 is the release where the suite stops carrying its history: the whole API migrates to snake_case, backward compatibility with the old RxODE package is removed, and result processing is refactored into output functions that can be applied as a collection, with an NCA table the first substantial one. Campsismod made the same snake_case move a week earlier, so this is a suite-wide rename rather than one package's decision.
◆ Where it's heading
The 1.8 and 1.9 releases together describe a package being made drivable from outside R. JSON interfaces arrived first for models in Campsismod 1.3.0 and for datasets in Campsis 1.8.0, then extended to scenarios, settings and study replication; the output side has now been generalised the same way, from fixed result processing to a collection of output functions applied to simulated results. Renaming every function and cutting RxODE loose is the cost of that consolidation, paid in one deliberate breaking release rather than spread across several.
◆ Prediction
With the rename and the RxODE removal behind it, the next releases should restore the rxode2 engine to the test suite, which 1.9.0 removed temporarily, and continue filling out the output-function catalogue beyond NCA. The JSON surface looks like the intended entry point for driving Campsis from outside R, though the entries do not say what is meant to consume it.
samplr
0.0INFRA · APIS
A cognitive-science sampling package ships once, then goes quiet for eighteen months
◆ Current state
samplr compares human performance against sampling algorithms, giving cognitive scientists the MCMC machinery to test whether people behave like samplers. Its entire public history is three releases: a 1.0.0 in August 2024, a floating-point fix eighteen seconds later, and then nothing until a February 2026 patch. The release notes are unusually thin even by CRAN standards.
◆ Where it's heading
The feed shows a package that shipped and stopped. The 2024 tags were both created in one sitting and say almost nothing; the 2026 release is a row-count bug in Mean_Variance() bundled with citation metadata, a dropped dependency and http-to-https link fixes — the housekeeping profile of a package being kept alive for the paper that cites it rather than actively developed.
◆ Prediction
Adding citation information to the README is usually the move of a maintainer expecting the package to be referenced rather than extended. On this cadence the next release is more likely another CRAN-hygiene patch than new algorithms; there is not enough in these notes to say otherwise.
Alternatives to campsis and samplr
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 campsis or samplr.
goat
A gene-set enrichment package that outgrew its human-only origins, then went quiet.
rollupTree
The recursive-computation engine under massProps grows the accessors its consumer needed
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
stochvol
A Bayesian volatility sampler in its maintenance decade, paying for its own speed
See all campsis alternatives → · See all samplr alternatives →
Recent activity from campsis and samplr
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 15d agocampsissnake_case across the API; RxODE compatibility removed ⚡
- 5mo agocampsisJSON arguments reach Dataset, Scenarios and Settings
- 5mo agosamplrMean_Variance() row count corrected after eighteen months
- 7mo agocampsisMaintenance release for future package warnings
- 7mo agocampsisJSON import for Campsis datasets
- 1y agocampsisDosing gains vectorized compartments and cycle repetition
- 1y agocampsisParameter uncertainty from SIR and bootstrap output
- 1y agosamplrFloating point comparison fix
- 1y agosamplrsamplr 1.0.0
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between campsis and samplr?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. campsis is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 3.8 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 campsis better than samplr?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. campsis is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 3.8 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 Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to campsis?
Top campsis alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "campsis alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/campsis for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to samplr?
Top samplr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "samplr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/samplr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.