metatools
SDTM supplemental-qualifier merging got sturdier, then the package went quiet for two years.
Comparison · Analytics
cleanepi vs xplainfi
A side-by-side editorial comparison of cleanepi and xplainfi — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
cleanepi vs xplainfi: at a glance
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.
What is xplainfi?
xplainfi treats feature importance as an estimate with error bars, not a number.
xplainfi implements feature importance methods for mlr3 — perturbation-based PFI, CFI and RFI, refit-based LOCO and WVIM, and SAGE. Its defining choice is that importance scores come with inference attached: several confidence-interval methods, including the Nadeau-Bengio correction and a distribution-free option added in 1.1.0. It declared itself released at 1.0.0 in January 2026.
cleanepi vs xplainfi: editorial side-by-side
cleanepi
0.0ANALYTICS
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.
xplainfi
2.5ANALYTICS
xplainfi treats feature importance as an estimate with error bars, not a number.
◆ Current state
xplainfi implements feature importance methods for mlr3 — perturbation-based PFI, CFI and RFI, refit-based LOCO and WVIM, and SAGE. Its defining choice is that importance scores come with inference attached: several confidence-interval methods, including the Nadeau-Bengio correction and a distribution-free option added in 1.1.0. It declared itself released at 1.0.0 in January 2026.
◆ Where it's heading
Two lines of work run in parallel. The statistical side keeps adding inference options — variance corrections, conditional predictive impact, and the Lei et al. observation-wise loss-difference test — while the computational side attacks the cost of refit-based methods, most recently with a batch_size argument that parallelises refits and a default of one refit per resampling iteration. Support for pre-trained learners in 1.1.0 removes the refit requirement entirely in some workflows.
◆ Prediction
The stated reasoning that budget is better spent on resampling iterations than repeated refits suggests n_repeats may be removed from WVIM and LOCO outright, as the release notes hint.
Alternatives to cleanepi and xplainfi
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 xplainfi.
marquee
marquee is filling in the typographic details — outlines, border types, real font metrics for underlines.
logrx
A clinical-script logger that stopped shipping after its 0.2 line, changelogs made of merged PRs.
lobstr
R's object inspector is losing its view of the internals as CRAN closes off the private C API.
GSODR
A weather-station data client that broke one return type to hand back distances instead of bare IDs.
giscoR
giscoR's 1.0 moved its dataset index into the cache, so new Eurostat releases arrive without a package update.
See all cleanepi alternatives → · See all xplainfi alternatives →
Recent activity from cleanepi and xplainfi
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 20d agoxplainfiRefits parallelise; repeated refits deprioritised in favour of resampling
- 5mo agoxplainfiPre-trained learners supported; distribution-free inference added
- 6mo agoxplainfiVersion bumped to mark the package as released
- 9mo agoxplainfiConfidence intervals arrive for feature importance scores
- 9mo agocleanepiCase-insensitive missing-value matching and report fixes
- 1y agocleanepiReport elements become vectors; date parsing default restored
- 1y agocleanepiDate guesser corrected; empty-row indices fixed
- 2y agocleanepiFirst major release with cleaning and reporting
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between cleanepi and xplainfi?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. xplainfi is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 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 cleanepi better than xplainfi?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. xplainfi is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 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 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 xplainfi?
Top xplainfi alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "xplainfi alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/xplainfi for the full list with editorial commentary on each.