ggpointless
ggpointless keeps adding the ggplot2 layers nobody else bothered to write.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
Cobbler vs rstudio.prefs
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Cobbler and rstudio.prefs — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Cobbler vs rstudio.prefs: at a glance
What is Cobbler?
A backport branch kept alive for downstreams, with the main line nowhere in sight.
Every release in Cobbler's visible history describes itself the same way: backports from main to make Cobbler more stable for the community. The 3.3.x line has absorbed real work under that framing — collection indices, lazy loading, new XML-RPC endpoints — but none of it originates here. The most recent item is a 3.2.3 build carrying the CVE-2024-47533 fix to an older branch, with its Fixed and Added sections left as literal TBD placeholders.
What is rstudio.prefs?
Four years dormant, rstudio.prefs returns under a new maintainer.
The package scripts RStudio's own settings — preferences, secondary repositories, keyboard shortcuts — as code you can drop into a project or an onboarding doc. After 0.1.9 in July 2022 it went quiet for four years. 0.2.0 ends that with a maintainer handoff from Daniel D. Sjoberg to S.A. van der Wulp, a shortcut-removal path, and a fix for a corrupted addins.json entry that made reassigned shortcuts fail silently.
Cobbler vs rstudio.prefs: editorial side-by-side
Cobbler
0.0INFRA · APIS
A backport branch kept alive for downstreams, with the main line nowhere in sight.
◆ Current state
Every release in Cobbler's visible history describes itself the same way: backports from main to make Cobbler more stable for the community. The 3.3.x line has absorbed real work under that framing — collection indices, lazy loading, new XML-RPC endpoints — but none of it originates here. The most recent item is a 3.2.3 build carrying the CVE-2024-47533 fix to an older branch, with its Fixed and Added sections left as literal TBD placeholders.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a stabilization branch serving downstream packagers rather than a product advancing on its own. The work that does land splits cleanly into three buckets: distribution coverage (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, AlmaLinux, RHEL9, openSUSE and SLE signatures), API surface for integrators, and security backports. 3.3.3 flagged dump_vars as the replacement for get_blended_data as of 3.4.0 — a version that has not appeared in any release since.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued single-purpose backports to 3.3.x and older branches as CVEs surface; the entries give no indication of when or whether the 3.4.0 work these releases keep deferring to will ship.
rstudio.prefs
2.5INFRA · APIS
Four years dormant, rstudio.prefs returns under a new maintainer.
◆ Current state
The package scripts RStudio's own settings — preferences, secondary repositories, keyboard shortcuts — as code you can drop into a project or an onboarding doc. After 0.1.9 in July 2022 it went quiet for four years. 0.2.0 ends that with a maintainer handoff from Daniel D. Sjoberg to S.A. van der Wulp, a shortcut-removal path, and a fix for a corrupted addins.json entry that made reassigned shortcuts fail silently.
◆ Where it's heading
The through-line is teaching every setter how to unset. Secondary repositories got NULL removal back in 0.1.6; 0.2.0 extends the same convention to keyboard shortcuts. Most of the rest of 0.2.0 is arrears — a stale documentation URL that hid preferences such as enable_splash_screen, a deprecated purrr::update_list() call, and check_shortcut_consistency() erroring early on an unknown name.
◆ Prediction
With a new maintainer and refreshed GitHub Actions, the near-term work is likely more catch-up of the same kind: remaining deprecated dependencies and the preference list that fetch_rstudio_prefs() reads from RStudio's docs. Nothing in these notes points past RStudio settings as the scope.
Alternatives to Cobbler and rstudio.prefs
Other Infra & APIs 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 Cobbler or rstudio.prefs.
mpactr
mpactr spent two spring releases normalizing case in metadata after users kept tripping on it.
surveytidy
surveytidy taught every dplyr verb to operate on a whole collection of surveys at once.
surveycore
surveycore declared its API stable with every survey design type covered.
PEIMAN2
PEIMAN2 cut its annotation database loose from its release cycle without breaking CRAN.
prospectr
prospectr spent its biggest release in years fixing spectra it had been quietly mangling.
See all Cobbler alternatives → · See all rstudio.prefs alternatives →
Recent activity from Cobbler and rstudio.prefs
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 7h agorstudio.prefsShortcut removal, an addins.json fix, and a new maintainer
- 1mo agoCobblerCobbler 3.2.3 backports the CVE-2024-47533 admin API fix
- 1y agoCobblerCobbler 3.3.7 closes an admin-API authentication bypass
- 2y agoCobblerCobbler 3.3.6 adds EFI support to buildiso
- 2y agoCobblerCobbler 3.3.5 adds collection indices and lazy loading
- 2y agoCobblerCobbler 3.3.4 extends packaging to Ubuntu 22.04 and Debian 12
- 4y agorstudio.prefsPreferences now read and written through rstudioapi
- 4y agoCobblerCobbler 3.3.3 adds resolved-value XML-RPC endpoints for Uyuni
- 4y agorstudio.prefsConfig files left alone when nothing would change
- 4y agorstudio.prefsSecondary repositories can be deleted again
- 4y agorstudio.prefsRepository removal via NULL; config path helpers exported
- 5y agorstudio.prefsDocumentation, error messages, and array-type caution
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Cobbler and rstudio.prefs?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. rstudio.prefs 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 Cobbler better than rstudio.prefs?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. rstudio.prefs 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 Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Cobbler?
Top Cobbler alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Cobbler alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/cobbler for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to rstudio.prefs?
Top rstudio.prefs alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "rstudio.prefs alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rstudio-prefs for the full list with editorial commentary on each.