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CatastRo vs epiflows

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

CatastRo vs epiflows: at a glance

FeatureCatastRoepiflows
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesspatial-data, open-government-data, spain, httr2r, epidemiology, dormant, maintenance
Last editorial update5h 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 epiflows?

epiflows has shipped four releases in eight years, none of which changed the code.

epiflows predicts the spread of infectious disease along population flows between locations, and it is effectively dormant. The whole visible history spans 2018 to 2026 in four entries: the first CRAN release, a Zenodo archival tag, a Roxygen patch whose notes state the functionality is unchanged, and a 2026 release replacing deprecated ggplot2 and tibble calls. No entry describes new epidemiological capability.

Read the full epiflows trajectory →

CatastRo vs epiflows: 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.

E
epiflows
ANALYTICS
0.0

epiflows has shipped four releases in eight years, none of which changed the code.

◆ Current state

epiflows predicts the spread of infectious disease along population flows between locations, and it is effectively dormant. The whole visible history spans 2018 to 2026 in four entries: the first CRAN release, a Zenodo archival tag, a Roxygen patch whose notes state the functionality is unchanged, and a 2026 release replacing deprecated ggplot2 and tibble calls. No entry describes new epidemiological capability.

◆ Where it's heading

The package is being kept installable rather than developed. The one recent release is dependency maintenance contributed from outside, which is the pattern for RECON-era epidemiology packages that have outlived their original project funding. Two separate entries are both labelled version 0.2.1, so even the version history is not a reliable guide to what changed.

◆ Prediction

Any further releases will most likely be more deprecation cleanup to keep the package on CRAN; there is nothing in the record suggesting active development has resumed.

Alternatives to CatastRo and epiflows

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 epiflows.

See all CatastRo alternatives → · See all epiflows alternatives →

Recent activity from CatastRo and epiflows

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

  1. 2mo agoCatastRoAI-assisted internal refactor and cli message pass
  2. 3mo agoCatastRoDocumentation-only patch release
  3. 5mo agoCatastRo1.0.0 rebuilds on httr2 and invalidates every existing cache
  4. 5mo agoepiflowsDeprecated ggplot2 and tibble calls replaced
  5. 1y agoCatastRoDocumentation and URL refresh
  6. 2y agoCatastRoCadastre service entry points updated
  7. 2y agoCatastRohttr to httr2 migration, declared invisible to users
  8. 3y agoepiflowsRoxygen patch for CRAN checks
  9. 7y agoepiflowsFirst Zenodo archival tag
  10. 8y agoepiflowsFirst CRAN release

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between CatastRo and epiflows?

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

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

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