webchem
Adding chemical databases with one hand while public ones close programmatic access with the other.
Comparison · Analytics
cfr vs GSODR
A side-by-side editorial comparison of cfr and GSODR — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
cfr vs GSODR: at a glance
What is cfr?
cfr packaged delay-corrected severity estimation, then went quiet on maintenance.
The package estimates disease severity and case ascertainment while correcting for the delay between a case being reported and its outcome being known. After the 0.1.1 rework of the estimation internals and a maintainer handover to Adam Kucharski, activity dropped to a vignette and an R-devel compatibility patch in February 2025.
What is GSODR?
A weather-station data client that broke one return type to hand back distances instead of bare IDs.
GSODR fetches and tidies NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day weather data for R. The 4.0.0 release made nearest_stations() return a data.table of full station metadata plus distance in kilometres rather than a character vector of station IDs, with a documented one-liner for anyone who only wanted the IDs. Nothing has shipped since March 2024.
cfr vs GSODR: editorial side-by-side
cfr
0.0ANALYTICS
cfr packaged delay-corrected severity estimation, then went quiet on maintenance.
◆ Current state
The package estimates disease severity and case ascertainment while correcting for the delay between a case being reported and its outcome being known. After the 0.1.1 rework of the estimation internals and a maintainer handover to Adam Kucharski, activity dropped to a vignette and an R-devel compatibility patch in February 2025.
◆ Where it's heading
The methodological work is done and consolidated: likelihood approximation is now selected automatically from outbreak size and an initial severity estimate, and the internals were renamed with a dot prefix to close the public surface down to cfr_static(), cfr_rolling() and the data-preparation generic. Releases since have been documentation and compatibility only.
◆ Prediction
The 0.1.0 notes flagged time-varying ascertainment as future work and it has not appeared in the two releases since; nothing in these entries indicates when or whether it lands.
GSODR
0.0ANALYTICS
A weather-station data client that broke one return type to hand back distances instead of bare IDs.
◆ Current state
GSODR fetches and tidies NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day weather data for R. The 4.0.0 release made nearest_stations() return a data.table of full station metadata plus distance in kilometres rather than a character vector of station IDs, with a documented one-liner for anyone who only wanted the IDs. Nothing has shipped since March 2024.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is mature and its releases read as upkeep: refreshing the internal ISD history database, dropping dependencies in favour of base and curl, and hardening the download path against station-year combinations that do not exist. The 4.0.0 change fits the same pattern of returning more structure by default rather than making callers query twice.
◆ Prediction
The most likely next release is another internal station-history refresh; there is no signal of new data sources or analysis features in these entries.
Alternatives to cfr and GSODR
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 cfr or GSODR.
sftime
The spatiotemporal companion to sf, moving at the pace of the packages around it.
ReLTER
An interface to Europe's long-term ecosystem research network that went quiet after 2.0.
waywiser
Spatial model assessment that spent the last year on cross-platform arithmetic and CRAN rules.
taxizedb
Stopped trusting the cloud to prepare its taxonomic databases and does the conversion locally.
fellingdater
Went from estimating felling dates to doing the crossdating that produces them.
Recent activity from cfr and GSODR
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1y agocfrR-devel difftime patch and an individual-data vignette
- 2y agocfrSeverity estimator picks its own likelihood approximation
- 2y agoGSODRnearest_stations() returns metadata and distances
- 2y agoGSODRStation history refresh and internal tidying
- 2y agocfrDelay-corrected severity and ascertainment estimation on CRAN ⚡
- 2y agoGSODRBad station-year requests warn instead of failing the batch
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between cfr and GSODR?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. cfr and GSODR 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 cfr better than GSODR?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. cfr and GSODR 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 cfr?
Top cfr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "cfr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/cfr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to GSODR?
Top GSODR alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "GSODR alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/gsodr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.