n2kanalysis
n2kanalysis has spent eight years wiring INLA models to an S3 bucket.
Comparison · Analytics
CatastRoNav vs mapSpain
A side-by-side editorial comparison of CatastRoNav and mapSpain — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:spain
CatastRoNav vs mapSpain: at a glance
What is CatastRoNav?
Navarre's cadastre client finally reaches feature parity with its bigger Spanish sibling.
CatastRoNav wraps the Cadastre of Navarre, a Spanish region that publishes its own cadastral services separately from the national system. Until 1.0.0 the package could only fetch cadastral parcels via ATOM; it now retrieves buildings and addresses through ATOM as well and adds WMS INSPIRE layer access through catrnav_wms_get_layer(). The same release relicenses to GPL-2, moves requests to httr2 with retries and switches messaging to cli.
What is mapSpain?
mapSpain's 1.0.0 broke every user cache to get the package onto modern foundations.
mapSpain provides administrative boundaries, tile providers and geographic dictionaries for Spain, pulling from GISCO, SIANE, INE and IGN sources. The 1.0.0 release in January 2026 rebuilt it: requests moved to httr2, the cache reorganized into topic-based subfolders under tools::R_user_dir() instead of rappdirs, R 4.1 became the floor, and every function now returns tidy objects. Existing caches are explicitly incompatible and must be rebuilt.
CatastRoNav vs mapSpain: editorial side-by-side
CatastRoNav
0.0ANALYTICS
Navarre's cadastre client finally reaches feature parity with its bigger Spanish sibling.
◆ Current state
CatastRoNav wraps the Cadastre of Navarre, a Spanish region that publishes its own cadastral services separately from the national system. Until 1.0.0 the package could only fetch cadastral parcels via ATOM; it now retrieves buildings and addresses through ATOM as well and adds WMS INSPIRE layer access through catrnav_wms_get_layer(). The same release relicenses to GPL-2, moves requests to httr2 with retries and switches messaging to cli.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is being pulled into line with CatastRo, the maintainer's national-cadastre client: same transport, same UTF-8 normalization strategy, same option names falling back to the CatastRo equivalents. Coverage has been gated by what the Navarre Cadastre actually publishes — 0.1.0 said outright that further ATOM capabilities would arrive when the regional service made them available, and 1.0.0 is that promise landing.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next releases to track new Navarre service endpoints as they are published, and to inherit whatever maintenance pattern CatastRo adopts next.
mapSpain
0.0ANALYTICS
mapSpain's 1.0.0 broke every user cache to get the package onto modern foundations.
◆ Current state
mapSpain provides administrative boundaries, tile providers and geographic dictionaries for Spain, pulling from GISCO, SIANE, INE and IGN sources. The 1.0.0 release in January 2026 rebuilt it: requests moved to httr2, the cache reorganized into topic-based subfolders under tools::R_user_dir() instead of rappdirs, R 4.1 became the floor, and every function now returns tidy objects. Existing caches are explicitly incompatible and must be rebuilt.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has finished its modernization and moved into consolidation. 1.1.0 added a configurable query timeout and pinned httr2 for compatibility with giscoR, the sibling package it shares plumbing with; 1.2.0 was a declared internal-only refactor with the public API held fixed and the work described as AI-assisted with human review. The data-source expansion that characterized the 0.9.x and 0.10.x line — comarcas by type, simplified INE geometries, SIANE vintages — has paused while the foundations settle.
◆ Prediction
Expect a return to source coverage now that the refactor is done: new SIANE or INE vintages and additional boundary types are the pattern this package has repeated. The entries show no further architectural work queued.
Alternatives to CatastRoNav and mapSpain
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 CatastRoNav or mapSpain.
n1qn1c
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ggstatsplot
ggstatsplot reached 1.0 by adding tests, having outsourced its statistics years ago.
collapse
collapse got a JSS paper and a 7x fmean speedup in the same release.
gtsummary
gtsummary is quietly rebuilding itself around analysis results data, one table verb at a time.
broadcast
broadcast is filling in NumPy-style array broadcasting for R, operator by operator.
See all CatastRoNav alternatives → · See all mapSpain alternatives →
Recent activity from CatastRoNav and mapSpain
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoCatastRoNavBuildings, addresses and WMS layers arrive in 1.0.0 ⚡
- 1mo agomapSpainInternal helper refactor with the public API held fixed
- 4mo agomapSpainQuery timeout becomes configurable
- 7mo agomapSpain1.0.0 rebuilds on httr2 and invalidates every cache ⚡
- 1y agomapSpainComarcas and simplified INE geometries added
- 1y agomapSpainComarca types split across four official sources
- 1y agomapSpainAdapted to the SIANE 2024 databases
- 2y agoCatastRoNavATOM parcel retrieval and a caching system
- 3y agoCatastRoNavGeometry validity fix for returned sf objects
- 3y agoCatastRoNavFirst release opens the Navarre cadastre to R
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between CatastRoNav and mapSpain?
Both compete on the same themes — spain — within Analytics. CatastRoNav and mapSpain 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 CatastRoNav better than mapSpain?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. CatastRoNav and mapSpain 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 CatastRoNav?
Top CatastRoNav alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "CatastRoNav alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/catastronav for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to mapSpain?
Top mapSpain alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "mapSpain alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mapspain for the full list with editorial commentary on each.