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Comparison · Infra & APIs

DMRnet vs tf

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

DMRnet vs tf: at a glance

FeatureDMRnettf
SectorInfra & APIsInfra & APIs
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesvariable-selection, high-dimensional, categorical-data, r-packagefunctional-data-analysis, vctrs, multivariate, r-packages
Last editorial update1h ago6h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is DMRnet?

A categorical-variable selection package that publishes its full test logs as release candidates.

DMRnet implements delete-or-merge-regressors model selection for high-dimensional categorical data, alongside SOSnet and GLAMER variants from the same research group. Development is slow and academic — 0.4.0 in 2023, then two years to 0.4.1 in August 2025, which corrects an invalid lambda.1se computation and the cross-validation plots that displayed it. Every real release is preceded days earlier by a release-candidate entry containing the raw output of the correctness and consistency test suite.

Read the full DMRnet trajectory →

What is tf?

tf gave functional data a second dimension: curves whose values are vectors.

tf supplies the vector classes underneath the tidyfun stack — tfd for raw functional observations, tfb for basis-represented ones, both built on vctrs so curves sit in a data frame column and behave like any other vector. Until July that codomain was scalar. The 0.5.0 release adds tfd_mv and tfb_mv, classes for functions whose values are vectors in R^d, and rebuilds the analysis verbs to match.

Read the full tf trajectory →

DMRnet vs tf: editorial side-by-side

D
DMRnet
INFRA · APIS
0.0

A categorical-variable selection package that publishes its full test logs as release candidates.

◆ Current state

DMRnet implements delete-or-merge-regressors model selection for high-dimensional categorical data, alongside SOSnet and GLAMER variants from the same research group. Development is slow and academic — 0.4.0 in 2023, then two years to 0.4.1 in August 2025, which corrects an invalid lambda.1se computation and the cross-validation plots that displayed it. Every real release is preceded days earlier by a release-candidate entry containing the raw output of the correctness and consistency test suite.

◆ Where it's heading

The package is converging on correctness rather than expanding. 0.3.3 was a wall of fixes to inference, log-likelihood, and degenerate cross-validation cases; 0.4.0 added the var_sel algorithm and brought GLAMER into the package's own net idiom over its tau parameter; 0.4.1 is again a statistical correctness fix. The published test-log releases are the tell — this maintainer treats reproducible evidence that hard cases still pass as part of the release artifact, which is unusual outside academic statistical software.

◆ Prediction

Given the two-year gap before 0.4.1 and its narrow scope, the next release is most likely another correctness fix arriving on a multi-year cadence, again preceded by a full test-log release candidate.

T
tf
INFRA · APIS
0.0

tf gave functional data a second dimension: curves whose values are vectors.

◆ Current state

tf supplies the vector classes underneath the tidyfun stack — tfd for raw functional observations, tfb for basis-represented ones, both built on vctrs so curves sit in a data frame column and behave like any other vector. Until July that codomain was scalar. The 0.5.0 release adds tfd_mv and tfb_mv, classes for functions whose values are vectors in R^d, and rebuilds the analysis verbs to match.

◆ Where it's heading

The package is widening what a functional observation can be, then porting the toolkit onto it. Registration arrived first in 0.4.0 for univariate curves and immediately gained an srvf_mv method for aligning components jointly, and tfb_mfpc() ports principal component analysis to the multivariate case with a single set of scores shared across components. Alongside that runs steady dependency shedding — mvtnorm and pracma both replaced by inlined samplers that reproduce prior draws bit-for-bit, glue dropped for cli in the previous release — and an unusually long tail of NA-handling and edge-case fixes, several caught in pre-release review of the new classes.

◆ Prediction

The new classes ship with FPCA, registration and shape alignment but the release notes describe tidyfun::tf_unnest() as the consumer of one new export, so the visible next step is the rest of the tidyfun stack catching up to vector-valued columns. Expect follow-up patches on the vctrs casting paths, which is where most of this release's late fixes clustered.

Alternatives to DMRnet and tf

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 DMRnet or tf.

See all DMRnet alternatives → · See all tf alternatives →

Recent activity from DMRnet and tf

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

  1. 1mo agotfVector-valued functional data becomes a first-class type
  2. 5mo agotfCurve registration, five depth measures and sub-domain splitting
  3. 1y agoDMRnetInvalid lambda.1se computation corrected in cross-validation
  4. 1y agoDMRnetTest-suite log published ahead of the 0.4.1 release
  5. 2y agotfFix: tf_crosscov normalization
  6. 3y agoDMRnetvar_sel added; GLAMER reworked as a net over tau
  7. 3y agoDMRnetTest-suite log published ahead of the 0.4.0 release
  8. 3y agoDMRnetInference, log-likelihood, and degenerate-CV fixes across all model families
  9. 3y agoDMRnetTest-suite log published ahead of the 0.3.3 release

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between DMRnet and tf?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. DMRnet and tf 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 DMRnet better than tf?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. DMRnet and tf 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 Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to DMRnet?

Top DMRnet alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "DMRnet alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/dmrnet for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to tf?

Top tf alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "tf alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tf for the full list with editorial commentary on each.