tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
A side-by-side editorial comparison of DoseFinding and fabletools — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
New stewardship at openpharma, then two releases adding the methods MCP-Mod was missing
DoseFinding implements MCP-Mod and related dose-response methodology for clinical trial design and analysis. In 2024 it changed hands — Marius Thomas took over as maintainer, Novartis was recorded as copyright holder and funder, and the package moved to the openpharma GitHub organisation with roxygen documentation and a proper NEWS file. The two releases since have added substantive methodology: model averaging for dose-response fitting in 1.3-1, and conditional and predictive power for interim analyses in 1.4-1.
The tidyverts forecasting core rebuilt model combination on full residual covariance.
fabletools is the framework layer under fable and fpp3 — mables, fables, accuracy measures, reconciliation, and the model arithmetic that lets forecasters express ensembles as expressions. Version 0.8.0 reworked that arithmetic: combination now uses a joint N-way convolution accounting for the full residual covariance across components rather than composing pairwise, and every arithmetic operator collapses to a single model_combination with correctly implied weights, so nested expressions like ((m1 + m2)/2 + m3)/2 flatten automatically. In parallel, the package has been shedding graphics to {ggtime} on a deliberately slow deprecation clock.
DoseFinding implements MCP-Mod and related dose-response methodology for clinical trial design and analysis. In 2024 it changed hands — Marius Thomas took over as maintainer, Novartis was recorded as copyright holder and funder, and the package moved to the openpharma GitHub organisation with roxygen documentation and a proper NEWS file. The two releases since have added substantive methodology: model averaging for dose-response fitting in 1.3-1, and conditional and predictive power for interim analyses in 1.4-1.
The pattern before the handover was maintenance — R-devel compliance, a bug fix, a link. After it, each release carries a named methodological addition with an acknowledged contributor, plus documentation to match: a longitudinal analysis vignette shipped alongside the interim power work. Housekeeping continues underneath, mostly clearing deprecated ggplot2 interfaces, aes_string in one release and qplot in the next.
Given the last two releases each added one method with a supporting vignette, expect the next to follow the same shape. Both additions so far extend the package beyond fixed dose-response fitting, so adaptive and interim methodology is the more likely direction.
fabletools is the framework layer under fable and fpp3 — mables, fables, accuracy measures, reconciliation, and the model arithmetic that lets forecasters express ensembles as expressions. Version 0.8.0 reworked that arithmetic: combination now uses a joint N-way convolution accounting for the full residual covariance across components rather than composing pairwise, and every arithmetic operator collapses to a single model_combination with correctly implied weights, so nested expressions like ((m1 + m2)/2 + m3)/2 flatten automatically. In parallel, the package has been shedding graphics to {ggtime} on a deliberately slow deprecation clock.
The framework is being narrowed and deepened at the same time. Narrowed, because plotting is moving out to a dedicated package over an announced two-year deprecation, leaving fabletools to modeling infrastructure. Deepened, because the recent statistical work targets correctness in places users could not easily inspect — combination weights, inverse-variance weighting computed on response rather than innovation residuals, reconciliation coherency matrices exposed via coherent_smat() and coherent_cmat(). Class hygiene follows the same instinct, with mdl_lst replacing lst_mdl and gaining augment(), glance(), and tidy() so global and reconciliation models report statistics like any other.
With combination and reconciliation infrastructure freshly reworked, the remaining announced work is the ggtime separation, so expect the graphics re-exports to keep degrading toward removal while modeling changes stay incremental.
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 DoseFinding or fabletools.
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
A cache-directory helper that has shipped nothing but CRAN-triggered patches for seven years.
gigs redesigned its whole conversion API for rOpenSci, then spent three releases getting the docs to build.
A weather-data client that keeps rewriting its HTTP layer while slowly tightening its API.
See all DoseFinding alternatives → · See all fabletools alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. DoseFinding and fabletools 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.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. DoseFinding and fabletools 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.
Top DoseFinding alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "DoseFinding alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/dosefinding for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top fabletools alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "fabletools alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fabletools for the full list with editorial commentary on each.