reda
A mature recurrent-event toolkit in careful maintenance, shedding weight rather than adding surface.
Comparison · Analytics
cfbfastr vs forrel
A side-by-side editorial comparison of cfbfastr and forrel — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
cfbfastr vs forrel: at a glance
What is cfbfastr?
College football's open data client hit v2 — and now reports how many API calls you have left.
cfbfastR retrieves college football data — play-by-play, box scores, betting lines, ratings and recruiting — from the CollegeFootballData API, ESPN endpoints and the sportsdataverse data repository. Version 2.0.0 in September 2025 was the first release in over three years and rebuilt the package against CFBD's v2 API. Every load_cfb_*() function changed its underlying source to comply with CFBD's terms, the play-by-play dataset gained team and game identifiers users previously had to join in themselves, and a batch of new endpoints arrived covering opponent-adjusted metrics, FPI ratings and live scoreboard and play data.
What is forrel?
forrel is getting faster at the simulations forensic kinship work actually spends its time on.
forrel handles forensic pedigree analysis: kinship likelihood ratios, profile simulation, relationship checking, and missing person calculations. Version 1.9.0 synced with pedtools 2.11.0's loop handling, which the release notes credit with enabling complex pedigrees that were previously intractable, and moved profileSim() to mirai for parallelism. It also added fEstimate() for inbreeding coefficients and parentChildLikelihood() as a fast path for the simplest case.
cfbfastr vs forrel: editorial side-by-side
cfbfastr
0.0ANALYTICS
College football's open data client hit v2 — and now reports how many API calls you have left.
◆ Current state
cfbfastR retrieves college football data — play-by-play, box scores, betting lines, ratings and recruiting — from the CollegeFootballData API, ESPN endpoints and the sportsdataverse data repository. Version 2.0.0 in September 2025 was the first release in over three years and rebuilt the package against CFBD's v2 API. Every load_cfb_*() function changed its underlying source to comply with CFBD's terms, the play-by-play dataset gained team and game identifiers users previously had to join in themselves, and a batch of new endpoints arrived covering opponent-adjusted metrics, FPI ratings and live scoreboard and play data.
◆ Where it's heading
The package's direction is now set by the data provider rather than by its own plans, and that provider has moved to metered access — the free tier is capped at 1,000 calls a month, with limits tied to membership level. cfbd_api_key_info() reporting a user's tier and usage is the clearest sign of that shift: quota is now something an analysis has to manage. The long gap before 2.0.0 and its arrival largely through a first-time contributor also indicate a package sustained by community effort rather than steady maintenance.
◆ Prediction
The live scoreboard and play endpoints are the natural place for the next work, since they are the ones that benefit from in-season iteration. Given the release notes warn users to check their pipelines, follow-up fixes for the changed loading functions are likely before anything new lands.
forrel
0.0ANALYTICS
forrel is getting faster at the simulations forensic kinship work actually spends its time on.
◆ Current state
forrel handles forensic pedigree analysis: kinship likelihood ratios, profile simulation, relationship checking, and missing person calculations. Version 1.9.0 synced with pedtools 2.11.0's loop handling, which the release notes credit with enabling complex pedigrees that were previously intractable, and moved profileSim() to mirai for parallelism. It also added fEstimate() for inbreeding coefficients and parentChildLikelihood() as a fast path for the simplest case.
◆ Where it's heading
Two long threads run through the window. One is making the common operations cheap: faster simulations through reorganized likelihood calculations, a dedicated parent-child path, dropped map attribute preservation, log-likelihoods to avoid underflow in kinshipLR(). The other is making relationship checking presentable, with checkPairwise() growing ggplot2 and plotly output, verbal relationship descriptions, and bootstrap p-values. Reference data is maintained alongside both, with the FORCE SNP panel completed and an X-chromosomal counterpart added.
◆ Prediction
With profileSim() on mirai and the loop handling synced, the next likely step is extending mirai parallelism to the other simulation-heavy functions such as exclusionPower() and the bootstrap in checkPairwise().
Alternatives to cfbfastr and forrel
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 cfbfastr or forrel.
TidyDensity
A distribution catalogue that grows by one family at a time, and rarely breaks anything.
rnpn
The USA phenology data client rebuilt its entire stack and stopped handing users -9999 as a number.
GeneNMF
GeneNMF rebuilt how it derives meta-programs, changing every result it had produced.
rempsyc
Publication-ready psychology tables and plots, tracking APA style as closely as the software allows.
sdsfun
A spatial-statistics utility package exists to be depended on, and is built accordingly.
See all cfbfastr alternatives → · See all forrel alternatives →
Recent activity from cfbfastr and forrel
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoforrelmirai parallelism and faster profile simulation
- 11mo agocfbfastrRebuilt on CFBD API v2 with metered access and live endpoints ⚡
- 1y agoforrelFORCE SNP panel completed and X-chromosomal set added
- 1y agoforrelrankProfiles() and access to special lumping
- 1y agoforrelacrossComps argument and readFam() unexported
- 1y agoforrelcheckPairwise() overhauled with p-values and new plot backends
- 2y agoforrelFamilias interoperability split into pedFamilias
- 4y agocfbfastrESPN endpoints and repo-backed loaders added
- 4y agocfbfastrAll outputs standardised as tibbles with a custom class
- 4y agocfbfastrCRAN release with option-restoring cleanup
- 4y agocfbfastrMinor fixes to betting and FPI rating functions
- 4y agocfbfastrESPN scoreboard and play-by-play access, with argument cleanup
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between cfbfastr and forrel?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. cfbfastr and forrel 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 cfbfastr better than forrel?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. cfbfastr and forrel 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 cfbfastr?
Top cfbfastr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "cfbfastr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/cfbfastr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to forrel?
Top forrel alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "forrel alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/forrel for the full list with editorial commentary on each.