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Comparison · Infra & APIs

exametrika vs ggfootball

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

Shared themes:r-package

exametrika vs ggfootball: at a glance

Featureexametrikaggfootball
SectorInfra & APIsInfra & APIs
Velocity score3.80.0
Sparks · 30d10
Top themespsychometrics, irt, biclustering, breaking-changesports-analytics, r-package, data-scraping, expected-goals
Last editorial update16h ago1d ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is exametrika?

exametrika breaks its own numbers to fix them, and ships the fit statistic nominal data lacked.

exametrika is an R psychometrics package covering IRT, latent class and rank analysis, and biclustering. Version 2.0.0 is a deliberate break: an EM convergence defect inherited from the reference implementation stopped estimation after as little as one cycle while reporting convergence, so every EM-based model in the package now returns different estimates than it did before. The package no longer reproduces the numbers printed in Shojima (2022), and the maintainer says so directly rather than burying it. The deprecation removals promised since 1.15.0 ride along in the same release, and the package title changed to Test Data Engineering.

Read the full exametrika trajectory →

What is ggfootball?

A football-viz package just swapped scraping for an API and broke its own output to do it.

ggfootball is a small R package for plotting expected-goals and shot data, sourced from Understat. Four releases are visible. The 0.2.x line was argument tidying and dependency pruning; 0.3.0 replaced the data-acquisition layer wholesale, moving get_match_shots() from HTML parsing onto Understat's AJAX endpoints and changing the returned column names in the process.

Read the full ggfootball trajectory →

exametrika vs ggfootball: editorial side-by-side

E
exametrika
INFRA · APIS
3.8

exametrika breaks its own numbers to fix them, and ships the fit statistic nominal data lacked.

◆ Current state

exametrika is an R psychometrics package covering IRT, latent class and rank analysis, and biclustering. Version 2.0.0 is a deliberate break: an EM convergence defect inherited from the reference implementation stopped estimation after as little as one cycle while reporting convergence, so every EM-based model in the package now returns different estimates than it did before. The package no longer reproduces the numbers printed in Shojima (2022), and the maintainer says so directly rather than burying it. The deprecation removals promised since 1.15.0 ride along in the same release, and the package title changed to Test Data Engineering.

◆ Where it's heading

The consolidation arc that ran through 1.14.0 and 1.15.0 has closed, but not the way the audit trail suggested it would. Rather than pausing new modelling work through the cleanup, 2.0.0 pairs the breaking removals with real capability: M2() and add_M2() bring a limited-information fit statistic with a full margin-based index set, order-restricted estimation becomes the default for Ranklustering on the strength of a higher likelihood, and LCA() picks up nominal and rated data. The correctness fixes share one shape - defects that got worse as data got larger, where a 700-respondent dataset silently merged fields and a 40-item test returned no assignments at all. A two-tier test suite now keeps 3,507 tests in CI while CRAN sees a 17-second subset.

◆ Prediction

With the deprecation backlog cleared and the EM core rewritten, the next releases have room to build on M2() - most plausibly extending the margin-based indices to the models that do not yet report them. Whether the R Journal submission that shaped 1.13.1 and 1.14.0 has landed is not visible in these entries.

G
ggfootball
INFRA · APIS
0.0

A football-viz package just swapped scraping for an API and broke its own output to do it.

◆ Current state

ggfootball is a small R package for plotting expected-goals and shot data, sourced from Understat. Four releases are visible. The 0.2.x line was argument tidying and dependency pruning; 0.3.0 replaced the data-acquisition layer wholesale, moving get_match_shots() from HTML parsing onto Understat's AJAX endpoints and changing the returned column names in the process.

◆ Where it's heading

The direction is away from scraped HTML and toward a thinner, more defensible package: four dependencies dropped in 0.3.0 on top of qdapRegex in 0.2.1, input validation added, error messages rewritten. Both breaking changes so far were accepted rather than deferred, which reads as a maintainer treating pre-1.0 as the window to get the shape right. The package is willing to break callers for structural reasons, not cosmetic ones.

◆ Prediction

With the scraper rebuilt and the dependency surface trimmed, the next releases are likely to stabilise the new column names and extend the plotting side, which has seen nothing since 0.2.0. A 1.0 would be the signal that the data structure is now considered fixed.

Alternatives to exametrika and ggfootball

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 exametrika or ggfootball.

See all exametrika alternatives → · See all ggfootball alternatives →

Recent activity from exametrika and ggfootball

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

  1. 1d agoexametrikaEM convergence fix changes every estimate; deprecated names removed
  2. 1mo agoexametrikaFull-codebase audit fixes silent result corruption, unifies arguments
  3. 2mo agoexametrikaPlot methods finally forward the graphical parameters they documented
  4. 3mo agoexametrikaCRAN resubmission: slow tests skipped to fit the check budget
  5. 3mo agoexametrikaGraphical Lasso and Chatterjee's xi extend the package into network estimation
  6. 3mo agoexametrikaFrozen research baseline, never released to CRAN
  7. 7mo agoggfootballggfootball 0.3.0
  8. 7mo agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.2
  9. 1y agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.1
  10. 1y agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.0

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between exametrika and ggfootball?

Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Infra & APIs. exametrika is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 3.8 vs 0.0), with 1 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.

Is exametrika better than ggfootball?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. exametrika is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 3.8 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to exametrika?

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

What are the best alternatives to ggfootball?

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