rtrek
A Star Trek data package that became a Memory Alpha web client and has been patching scrapers ever since.
Comparison · Analytics
cfbfastr vs glydraw
A side-by-side editorial comparison of cfbfastr and glydraw — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
cfbfastr vs glydraw: 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 glydraw?
SNFG glycan cartoons stopped being pictures and became ggplot2 geoms, guides and axis labels.
glydraw renders glycan structures as SNFG-standard cartoons, standalone or exported in bulk, and since 0.7.0 as native ggplot2 components: geom_glycan() for observations, geom_node_glycan() for ggraph networks, guide_glycan() for legends, and scale_x_glycan() and scale_y_glycan() for discrete axes. Appearance is configured through a single reusable style object rather than scattered arguments, a consolidation that 0.8.0 made breaking. The colour handling now expects a complete SNFG palette rather than sparse per-monosaccharide overrides.
cfbfastr vs glydraw: 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.
glydraw
6.3ANALYTICS
SNFG glycan cartoons stopped being pictures and became ggplot2 geoms, guides and axis labels.
◆ Current state
glydraw renders glycan structures as SNFG-standard cartoons, standalone or exported in bulk, and since 0.7.0 as native ggplot2 components: geom_glycan() for observations, geom_node_glycan() for ggraph networks, guide_glycan() for legends, and scale_x_glycan() and scale_y_glycan() for discrete axes. Appearance is configured through a single reusable style object rather than scattered arguments, a consolidation that 0.8.0 made breaking. The colour handling now expects a complete SNFG palette rather than sparse per-monosaccharide overrides.
◆ Where it's heading
The first half of this record is geometry correctness, fixing branch spacing, overlapping linkage annotations, core fucose collisions, triangle alignment and nested side-chain layout, because a cartoon that draws the wrong topology is worse than no cartoon. Once the drawing was trustworthy the package moved outward into ggplot2 and then inward again to consolidate its own API, dropping the glyexp dependency, removing positional argument support, and folding rendering options into style_glydraw(). Each of the last several releases has been explicitly breaking, which is a maintainer using a pre-1.0 window deliberately.
◆ Prediction
With the style object established and the ggplot2 surface in place, the remaining explicit arguments, show_linkage and orient, are the visible inconsistency and may follow the others into the style. Sibling packages adopt each change within days, as glyenzy did with the new orientation values, so expect the next breaking change to propagate the same way.
Alternatives to cfbfastr and glydraw
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 glydraw.
eiaapi
A thin EIA energy-data client whose whole story is making bulk queries survive the API's limits.
delaporte
A Fortran-backed Delaporte distribution package where every release is compiler and CRAN weather.
NHSRwaitinglist
Queuing theory packaged for NHS waiting-list managers, one year into a community-built first release.
simmer.plot
The plotting companion to simmer, shipping only when the simulator or a graphics dependency moves.
fastrg
A fast random-graph sampler that spent 0.3.1 fixing what its parameters actually mean.
See all cfbfastr alternatives → · See all glydraw alternatives →
Recent activity from cfbfastr and glydraw
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 15d agoglydrawRendering options consolidated into a single style object
- 23d agoglydrawGlycan cartoons become ggplot2 geoms, legends and axis labels ⚡
- 1mo agoglydrawNested side-chain layout preserves residue order and linkage labels
- 1mo agoglydrawFucose triangle geometry aligned to rectangle node bounds
- 1mo agoglydrawCustom colours, fucose orientation and export scaling; glyexp dependency dropped
- 1mo agoglydrawSwitches to SNFG standard colours
- 11mo agocfbfastrRebuilt on CFBD API v2 with metered access and live endpoints ⚡
- 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 glydraw?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. glydraw is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 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 cfbfastr better than glydraw?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. glydraw is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 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 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 glydraw?
Top glydraw alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "glydraw alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/glydraw for the full list with editorial commentary on each.