nflfastR
nflfastR is shedding surface to the rest of nflverse and consolidating on one stats API.
A side-by-side editorial comparison of cubist and fitVARMxID — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
The R port of Quinlan's Cubist gets reproducibility fixes, not new modelling
Cubist is the R interface to Quinlan's rule-based regression model, wrapping the original C sources behind an R API and feeding the tidymodels rules package. The 0.6.0 release adds a strip_time_stamps control that removes date, time and duration information from model output, and now errors rather than silently misbehaving when a date or date-time column is passed. Error reporting moves from base stop() and warning() to cli.
A VAR-model fitting package acquiring the standard R methods it launched without
fitVARMxID fits vector autoregressive models via OpenMx identification, and is one of several packages maintained by the jeksterslab account. Its recent releases are small and additive: confint() and plot() methods, a save function, and before that a documentation pass. The feed also carries automated build commits that are pure CI artifacts.
Cubist is the R interface to Quinlan's rule-based regression model, wrapping the original C sources behind an R API and feeding the tidymodels rules package. The 0.6.0 release adds a strip_time_stamps control that removes date, time and duration information from model output, and now errors rather than silently misbehaving when a date or date-time column is passed. Error reporting moves from base stop() and warning() to cli.
The direction is custodial: this is a mature algorithm with a stable definition, so the work is making a decades-old C codebase behave predictably inside a modern R workflow. The reproducibility thread is the clearest one — embedded timestamps mean two identical models compare as different objects, which breaks caching, testing and any workflow that hashes results. Alongside it runs slow C hygiene, from keyword symbol overwrites in 0.5.0 to unused-variable warnings in 0.6.0.
Expect continued small maintenance releases tracking CRAN compiler requirements and the needs of the rules package, with no change to the modelling algorithm itself.
fitVARMxID fits vector autoregressive models via OpenMx identification, and is one of several packages maintained by the jeksterslab account. Its recent releases are small and additive: confint() and plot() methods, a save function, and before that a documentation pass. The feed also carries automated build commits that are pure CI artifacts.
This is a package settling into R conventions rather than growing capability. Adding confint() and plot() is the standard-methods work most modeling packages do once the estimation core is stable — it signals the author considers the fitting side done. Cadence is roughly quarterly and the changes get smaller each time.
Further method coverage — summary(), predict(), or coef() — is the likely next step, since confint() and plot() are usually the first two of that set rather than the last.
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 cubist or fitVARMxID.
nflfastR is shedding surface to the rest of nflverse and consolidating on one stats API.
gdverse is turning geographical detector methods into inference, not just point estimates.
Pattern fills for ggplot2, hardened against the ways users write sizes
gcube's recent releases are all packaging metadata, not simulation code
ggstats keeps widening what a coefficient or Likert plot can be
ecodive rebuilt itself into a broad diversity-metric library, breaking as it went
See all cubist alternatives → · See all fitVARMxID alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. fitVARMxID 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.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. fitVARMxID 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.
Top cubist alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "cubist alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/cubist for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top fitVARMxID alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "fitVARMxID alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fitvarmxid for the full list with editorial commentary on each.