← Back to home
Comparison · Analytics

CatastRo vs collapse

A side-by-side editorial comparison of CatastRo and collapse — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

CatastRo vs collapse: at a glance

FeatureCatastRocollapse
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesspatial-data, open-government-data, spain, httr2data-transformation, performance, simd, grouped-statistics
Last editorial update2h ago1h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is CatastRo?

Spain's cadastre client spent 1.0.0 breaking its own cache to become a tidy, httr2-native package.

CatastRo pulls parcels, buildings, addresses and WMS map layers from the Spanish Cadastre into R. The 1.0.0 line rebuilt the codebase on httr2, reorganized the cache into topic-based subfolders and moved persistent storage from rappdirs to tools::R_user_dir(), a change that invalidates every pre-1.0.0 cache. The two releases since are documentation and an AI-assisted internal refactor.

Read the full CatastRo trajectory →

What is collapse?

collapse got a JSS paper and a 7x fmean speedup in the same release.

collapse provides fast grouped statistical computing and data transformation for R, built on a C backend with its own grouping, hashing and aggregation primitives. The 2.1.x line is a maintenance and optimization series: SIMD multiple-accumulator work delivering roughly 2x on fsum() and 7x on fmean() for systems without OpenMP, a custom internal unlist() with better attribute preservation, and a steady stream of correctness fixes in collap(), pivot() and roworderv().

Read the full collapse trajectory →

CatastRo vs collapse: editorial side-by-side

C
CatastRo
ANALYTICS
0.0

Spain's cadastre client spent 1.0.0 breaking its own cache to become a tidy, httr2-native package.

◆ Current state

CatastRo pulls parcels, buildings, addresses and WMS map layers from the Spanish Cadastre into R. The 1.0.0 line rebuilt the codebase on httr2, reorganized the cache into topic-based subfolders and moved persistent storage from rappdirs to tools::R_user_dir(), a change that invalidates every pre-1.0.0 cache. The two releases since are documentation and an AI-assisted internal refactor.

◆ Where it's heading

The arc is consolidation, not expansion: the retrieval surface has been stable since 0.3.0 added street names to addresses, while the maintainer has spent the releases since standardizing transport, output types and messaging. All functions now return tibbles or sf objects with tibble data, and cli handles user-facing output. The same modernization is being applied across the maintainer's other Spanish-data packages.

◆ Prediction

Expect the next releases to stay in the 1.0.x patch range — documentation, cli wording and CRAN upkeep — unless the Cadastre publishes a new service worth wrapping.

C
collapse
ANALYTICS
0.0

collapse got a JSS paper and a 7x fmean speedup in the same release.

◆ Current state

collapse provides fast grouped statistical computing and data transformation for R, built on a C backend with its own grouping, hashing and aggregation primitives. The 2.1.x line is a maintenance and optimization series: SIMD multiple-accumulator work delivering roughly 2x on fsum() and 7x on fmean() for systems without OpenMP, a custom internal unlist() with better attribute preservation, and a steady stream of correctness fixes in collap(), pivot() and roworderv().

◆ Where it's heading

The package is consolidating institutionally as much as technically. The repository moved to the fastverse organization with multiple people granted access, the Journal of Statistical Software paper landed as the primary citation, and documentation now includes an AI-generated interactive layer. Technically the focus is the hashing and grouping core — the decision to treat -0 and 0 as equal across funique(), group(), fmatch(), fmode() and their derivatives was made in sync with an equivalent change in Rcpp, and accepted a measured 3% cost to get it. The last release with breaking changes sits outside this six-entry window.

◆ Prediction

Expect further targeted performance work on the grouped statistical functions and continued small correctness fixes; the governance move to fastverse suggests contribution volume rather than direction is what the maintainer is managing.

Alternatives to CatastRo and collapse

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 CatastRo or collapse.

See all CatastRo alternatives → · See all collapse alternatives →

Recent activity from CatastRo and collapse

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 2mo agoCatastRoAI-assisted internal refactor and cli message pass
  2. 2mo agocollapseSIMD accumulators give fmean a 7x speedup without OpenMP
  3. 3mo agoCatastRoDocumentation-only patch release
  4. 5mo agoCatastRo1.0.0 rebuilds on httr2 and invalidates every existing cache
  5. 7mo agocollapseNegative zero now hashes equal to zero across the package
  6. 8mo agocollapsecollap() no longer double-aggregates external weights
  7. 9mo agocollapseCustom unlist() preserves attributes
  8. 0y agocollapseAssorted bug fixes
  9. 1y agocollapsena_insert gains by-reference mode; gsplit and pivot speed up
  10. 1y agoCatastRoDocumentation and URL refresh
  11. 2y agoCatastRoCadastre service entry points updated
  12. 2y agoCatastRohttr to httr2 migration, declared invisible to users

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between CatastRo and collapse?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. CatastRo and collapse 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 CatastRo better than collapse?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. CatastRo and collapse 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 CatastRo?

Top CatastRo alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "CatastRo alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/catastro for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to collapse?

Top collapse alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "collapse alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/collapse-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.