Tplyr
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
Comparison · Analytics
crul vs tidytlg
A side-by-side editorial comparison of crul and tidytlg — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
crul vs tidytlg: 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 tidytlg?
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
tidytlg generates clinical tables, listings, and graphs from tidyverse-style pipelines, maintained under the pharmaverse organisation. All four releases in the window are from a single eight-month stretch in 2023, and their content is CRAN preparation, a logging-dependency swap, and multi-file support. Release notes are merge lists rather than described changes.
crul vs tidytlg: 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.
tidytlg
0.0ANALYTICS
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
◆ Current state
tidytlg generates clinical tables, listings, and graphs from tidyverse-style pipelines, maintained under the pharmaverse organisation. All four releases in the window are from a single eight-month stretch in 2023, and their content is CRAN preparation, a logging-dependency swap, and multi-file support. Release notes are merge lists rather than described changes.
◆ Where it's heading
The visible arc is getting onto CRAN and staying installable — vignette corrections per CRAN comments, a badge, a check fix, and replacing the timber logging package with logrx. The one functional addition is multiple-file support. There has been no release since October 2023, so on this evidence the package is stable or dormant rather than actively developing.
◆ Prediction
The entries give no signal about planned work; with nothing shipped in roughly two years, the more likely next event is a maintenance release triggered by a dependency or CRAN check than a feature.
Alternatives to crul and tidytlg
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 tidytlg.
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.
datasetjson
datasetjson rebuilt its object model to track the CDISC Dataset-JSON 1.1 schema.
See all crul alternatives → · See all tidytlg alternatives →
Recent activity from crul and tidytlg
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1y agocrulMocking becomes a client parameter, independent of webmockr ⚡
- 2y agocrulAsync requests become mockable through webmockr
- 2y agocrulDocumentation fixes and test helper tweak
- 2y agotidytlgSwaps the timber logger for logrx
- 3y agotidytlgMultiple-file support and table-binding fixes
- 3y agocrulHTTP retries reach the async classes
- 3y agotidytlgVignette update per CRAN comments
- 3y agotidytlgFirst CRAN release
- 3y agocrulClearer error for mismatched urls and disk lengths
- 4y agocrulAsyncQueue gains response accessors; results print as a summary
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between crul and tidytlg?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. crul and tidytlg 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 tidytlg?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. crul and tidytlg 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 tidytlg?
Top tidytlg alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "tidytlg alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tidytlg for the full list with editorial commentary on each.