tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Comparison · Analytics
crul vs qualtRics
A side-by-side editorial comparison of crul and qualtRics — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:ropensci
crul vs qualtRics: at a glance
What is crul?
crul took mocking back from webmockr and made it a property of the client itself
crul is the R6-based HTTP client underneath much of rOpenSci's package stack, covering synchronous requests, three flavours of async, pagination and retries. Its 1.6.0 release in July 2025 changed where test mocking lives: each client — HttpClient, Async, AsyncVaried — now takes a mocking parameter at initialisation or per method, and the standalone mock() function is deprecated. Mocking used to be something webmockr switched on from outside; it is now a setting on the client.
What is qualtRics?
qualtRics moved its contact functions onto XM Directory days before the old endpoints died.
qualtRics is the R client for the Qualtrics v3 API — fetching survey responses, definitions, distributions, and contact lists into tidy data frames. Version 3.3.0 migrated all_mailinglists() and fetch_mailinglist() from the deprecated Research Core Contacts endpoints to XM Directory, ahead of Qualtrics retiring the old ones on June 30, 2026. Authentication and directory discovery are handled automatically, but the new endpoints return a different data shape, so column names changed. Before that, releases had been steady maintenance for two years, mostly around how survey response archives are unpacked.
crul vs qualtRics: editorial side-by-side
crul
0.0ANALYTICS
crul took mocking back from webmockr and made it a property of the client itself
◆ Current state
crul is the R6-based HTTP client underneath much of rOpenSci's package stack, covering synchronous requests, three flavours of async, pagination and retries. Its 1.6.0 release in July 2025 changed where test mocking lives: each client — HttpClient, Async, AsyncVaried — now takes a mocking parameter at initialisation or per method, and the standalone mock() function is deprecated. Mocking used to be something webmockr switched on from outside; it is now a setting on the client.
◆ Where it's heading
The async surface has been the growth area for years — retries reached Async, AsyncVaried, AsyncQueue and HttpRequest in 1.4, AsyncQueue gained the response accessors in 1.2, and 1.5.0 wired async requests up to webmockr. The 1.6.0 change reverses that direction of dependency, and it landed within a minute of webmockr's own release severing its tie to vcr. Read together, the rOpenSci HTTP stack is being deliberately untangled so each package can be used without the others.
◆ Prediction
With mock() deprecated rather than removed, the next major release is the likely point of deletion. Expect the remaining work to follow the same decoupling theme rather than adding request features.
qualtRics
0.0ANALYTICS
qualtRics moved its contact functions onto XM Directory days before the old endpoints died.
◆ Current state
qualtRics is the R client for the Qualtrics v3 API — fetching survey responses, definitions, distributions, and contact lists into tidy data frames. Version 3.3.0 migrated all_mailinglists() and fetch_mailinglist() from the deprecated Research Core Contacts endpoints to XM Directory, ahead of Qualtrics retiring the old ones on June 30, 2026. Authentication and directory discovery are handled automatically, but the new endpoints return a different data shape, so column names changed. Before that, releases had been steady maintenance for two years, mostly around how survey response archives are unpacked.
◆ Where it's heading
This package's roadmap is set by Qualtrics, not by its maintainers, and the release history reads as a sequence of accommodations — endpoint changes, retired APIs, and edge cases in exported files. The team's own recurring theme is reducing surprise: caching was removed from fetch_survey() in 3.2.0 so results are never stale, error handling was standardized on retry semantics, and column mappings were made inspectable via extract_colmap(). Feature additions, when they come, are new endpoints wrapped rather than new abstractions.
◆ Prediction
With the Contacts migration complete, the next likely work is bringing the remaining Research Core-era functions onto XM Directory equivalents before Qualtrics retires more of the old surface.
Alternatives to crul and qualtRics
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 crul or qualtRics.
Tplyr
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
rlistings
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
hoardr
A cache-directory helper that has shipped nothing but CRAN-triggered patches for seven years.
gigs
gigs redesigned its whole conversion API for rOpenSci, then spent three releases getting the docs to build.
riem
A weather-data client that keeps rewriting its HTTP layer while slowly tightening its API.
See all crul alternatives → · See all qualtRics alternatives →
Recent activity from crul and qualtRics
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoqualtRicsMailing list functions migrated to the XM Directory API ⚡
- 11mo agoqualtRicsZip extraction handles more special characters in survey titles
- 1y agocrulMocking becomes a client parameter, independent of webmockr ⚡
- 1y agoqualtRicsFix for questions with both recoded values and variable naming
- 1y agoqualtRicsBuild and CI housekeeping alongside the 3.2.1 release
- 2y agocrulAsync requests become mockable through webmockr
- 2y agocrulDocumentation fixes and test helper tweak
- 2y agoqualtRicsSurvey response caching removed from fetch_survey()
- 3y agocrulHTTP retries reach the async classes
- 3y agocrulClearer error for mismatched urls and disk lengths
- 3y agoqualtRicsArgument checking refactor and include_* NA fix
- 4y agocrulAsyncQueue gains response accessors; results print as a summary
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between crul and qualtRics?
Both compete on the same themes — ropensci — within Analytics. crul and qualtRics 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 crul better than qualtRics?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. crul and qualtRics 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 crul?
Top crul alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "crul alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/crul for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to qualtRics?
Top qualtRics alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "qualtRics alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/qualtrics for the full list with editorial commentary on each.