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collapse vs r-ledger

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

Shared themes:r-package

collapse vs r-ledger: at a glance

Featurecollapser-ledger
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesdata-transformation, performance, simd, grouped-statisticsplain-text-accounting, r-package, beancount, hledger
Last editorial update1h ago43m ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is collapse?

collapse got a JSS paper and a 7x fmean speedup in the same release.

collapse provides fast grouped statistical computing and data transformation for R, built on a C backend with its own grouping, hashing and aggregation primitives. The 2.1.x line is a maintenance and optimization series: SIMD multiple-accumulator work delivering roughly 2x on fsum() and 7x on fmean() for systems without OpenMP, a custom internal unlist() with better attribute preservation, and a steady stream of correctness fixes in collap(), pivot() and roworderv().

Read the full collapse trajectory →

What is r-ledger?

ledger adds a Rust toolchain fallback, so beancount imports work whether or not the Python tooling is installed.

An R package that imports plain-text accounting files — ledger, hledger and beancount — into data frames. Releases are sparse and driven almost entirely by changes in the external command-line tools it shells out to: date format shifts, decimal mark handling, binaries being removed from upstream projects. The last two releases show more activity than the several years preceding them.

Read the full r-ledger trajectory →

collapse vs r-ledger: editorial side-by-side

C
collapse
ANALYTICS
0.0

collapse got a JSS paper and a 7x fmean speedup in the same release.

◆ Current state

collapse provides fast grouped statistical computing and data transformation for R, built on a C backend with its own grouping, hashing and aggregation primitives. The 2.1.x line is a maintenance and optimization series: SIMD multiple-accumulator work delivering roughly 2x on fsum() and 7x on fmean() for systems without OpenMP, a custom internal unlist() with better attribute preservation, and a steady stream of correctness fixes in collap(), pivot() and roworderv().

◆ Where it's heading

The package is consolidating institutionally as much as technically. The repository moved to the fastverse organization with multiple people granted access, the Journal of Statistical Software paper landed as the primary citation, and documentation now includes an AI-generated interactive layer. Technically the focus is the hashing and grouping core — the decision to treat -0 and 0 as equal across funique(), group(), fmatch(), fmode() and their derivatives was made in sync with an equivalent change in Rcpp, and accepted a measured 3% cost to get it. The last release with breaking changes sits outside this six-entry window.

◆ Prediction

Expect further targeted performance work on the grouped statistical functions and continued small correctness fixes; the governance move to fastverse suggests contribution volume rather than direction is what the maintainer is managing.

R
r-ledger
ANALYTICS
0.0

ledger adds a Rust toolchain fallback, so beancount imports work whether or not the Python tooling is installed.

◆ Current state

An R package that imports plain-text accounting files — ledger, hledger and beancount — into data frames. Releases are sparse and driven almost entirely by changes in the external command-line tools it shells out to: date format shifts, decimal mark handling, binaries being removed from upstream projects. The last two releases show more activity than the several years preceding them.

◆ Where it's heading

The package's job is absorbing churn in an ecosystem it does not control, and the recent releases show that ecosystem fragmenting and then being backfilled. bean-report disappeared from beancount in 2020 and its toolchains were finally deprecated in v2.0.13; v2.1.1 responds to the arrival of rustledger by adding rledger and bean-query as explicit toolchain choices and making the beancount path fall back to rledger when bean-query is absent. The other steady thread is column parity — code, id and comment columns arriving one at a time across the three register functions, so that whichever toolchain a user has produces comparable output.

◆ Prediction

Expect the remaining deprecated toolchains to be removed outright, and further column-parity work so the rledger path returns the same fields as the established ones.

Alternatives to collapse and r-ledger

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 collapse or r-ledger.

See all collapse alternatives → · See all r-ledger alternatives →

Recent activity from collapse and r-ledger

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

  1. 2mo agor-ledgerrustledger supported as a beancount toolchain, with automatic fallback
  2. 2mo agocollapseSIMD accumulators give fmean a 7x speedup without OpenMP
  3. 4mo agor-ledgerbean-report toolchains deprecated; transaction code column imported
  4. 7mo agocollapseNegative zero now hashes equal to zero across the package
  5. 8mo agocollapsecollap() no longer double-aggregates external weights
  6. 9mo agocollapseCustom unlist() preserves attributes
  7. 0y agocollapseAssorted bug fixes
  8. 1y agocollapsena_insert gains by-reference mode; gsplit and pivot speed up
  9. 2y agor-ledgerTransaction id column for beancount and hledger; date coercion aligned
  10. 4y agor-ledgerrio moved from Imports to Suggests
  11. 6y agor-ledgerhledger date import fixed for newer hledger versions
  12. 6y agor-ledgerComma decimal marks and commodity prefixes parse correctly

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between collapse and r-ledger?

Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. collapse and r-ledger 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 collapse better than r-ledger?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. collapse and r-ledger 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 collapse?

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

What are the best alternatives to r-ledger?

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