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cleanepi vs fabletools

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

cleanepi vs fabletools: at a glance

Featurecleanepifabletools
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesepiverse-trace, data-cleaning, line-list, reportingforecasting, tidyverts, model-combination, reconciliation
Last editorial update4h ago56m ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is cleanepi?

cleanepi is in the long tail of bug fixes that follows a 1.0 — and changed maintainers along the way.

cleanepi cleans and standardises epidemiological line list data — dates, subject IDs, missing values, duplicates — and produces a report of what it changed. Since 1.0.0 in mid-2024 the releases have been almost entirely corrective: date-guesser fixes, report structure fixes and matching behaviour corrections. Maintainership passed to Bubacarr Bah in 1.1.2.

Read the full cleanepi trajectory →

What is fabletools?

The tidyverts forecasting core rebuilt model combination on full residual covariance.

fabletools is the framework layer under fable and fpp3 — mables, fables, accuracy measures, reconciliation, and the model arithmetic that lets forecasters express ensembles as expressions. Version 0.8.0 reworked that arithmetic: combination now uses a joint N-way convolution accounting for the full residual covariance across components rather than composing pairwise, and every arithmetic operator collapses to a single model_combination with correctly implied weights, so nested expressions like ((m1 + m2)/2 + m3)/2 flatten automatically. In parallel, the package has been shedding graphics to {ggtime} on a deliberately slow deprecation clock.

Read the full fabletools trajectory →

cleanepi vs fabletools: editorial side-by-side

C
cleanepi
ANALYTICS
0.0

cleanepi is in the long tail of bug fixes that follows a 1.0 — and changed maintainers along the way.

◆ Current state

cleanepi cleans and standardises epidemiological line list data — dates, subject IDs, missing values, duplicates — and produces a report of what it changed. Since 1.0.0 in mid-2024 the releases have been almost entirely corrective: date-guesser fixes, report structure fixes and matching behaviour corrections. Maintainership passed to Bubacarr Bah in 1.1.2.

◆ Where it's heading

Work has concentrated on the report object and on making the cleaning functions behave predictably at the edges — case- and whitespace-insensitive missing-value matching, report elements returned as vectors instead of comma-separated strings, an argument to print a single operation's report. The underlying cleaning API has barely moved since 1.0.0, which suggests it is settled.

◆ Prediction

The report interface has been reworked repeatedly across these releases and is the most likely place for further change; the cleaning functions themselves look stable.

F
fabletools
ANALYTICS
0.0

The tidyverts forecasting core rebuilt model combination on full residual covariance.

◆ Current state

fabletools is the framework layer under fable and fpp3 — mables, fables, accuracy measures, reconciliation, and the model arithmetic that lets forecasters express ensembles as expressions. Version 0.8.0 reworked that arithmetic: combination now uses a joint N-way convolution accounting for the full residual covariance across components rather than composing pairwise, and every arithmetic operator collapses to a single model_combination with correctly implied weights, so nested expressions like ((m1 + m2)/2 + m3)/2 flatten automatically. In parallel, the package has been shedding graphics to {ggtime} on a deliberately slow deprecation clock.

◆ Where it's heading

The framework is being narrowed and deepened at the same time. Narrowed, because plotting is moving out to a dedicated package over an announced two-year deprecation, leaving fabletools to modeling infrastructure. Deepened, because the recent statistical work targets correctness in places users could not easily inspect — combination weights, inverse-variance weighting computed on response rather than innovation residuals, reconciliation coherency matrices exposed via coherent_smat() and coherent_cmat(). Class hygiene follows the same instinct, with mdl_lst replacing lst_mdl and gaining augment(), glance(), and tidy() so global and reconciliation models report statistics like any other.

◆ Prediction

With combination and reconciliation infrastructure freshly reworked, the remaining announced work is the ggtime separation, so expect the graphics re-exports to keep degrading toward removal while modeling changes stay incremental.

Alternatives to cleanepi and fabletools

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 cleanepi or fabletools.

See all cleanepi alternatives → · See all fabletools alternatives →

Recent activity from cleanepi and fabletools

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

  1. 1mo agofabletoolsModel combination rebuilt on joint N-way convolution
  2. 3mo agofabletoolsCoherency matrices exposed, mdl_lst gains tidier methods
  3. 5mo agofabletoolsGraphics methods now require fabletools to be attached
  4. 6mo agofabletoolsTime series graphics migrating out to ggtime
  5. 8mo agofabletoolsggplot2 4.0.0 compatibility patch
  6. 8mo agofabletoolsIRF() generic and multivariate bootstrap sample paths
  7. 9mo agocleanepiCase-insensitive missing-value matching and report fixes
  8. 1y agocleanepiReport elements become vectors; date parsing default restored
  9. 1y agocleanepiDate guesser corrected; empty-row indices fixed
  10. 2y agocleanepiFirst major release with cleaning and reporting

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between cleanepi and fabletools?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. cleanepi and fabletools 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 cleanepi better than fabletools?

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

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

What are the best alternatives to fabletools?

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