Basedash
Basedash keeps pushing its data out of the workspace — now to people without accounts
Comparison · Analytics
excluder vs Fulcrum
A side-by-side editorial comparison of excluder and Fulcrum — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
excluder vs Fulcrum: at a glance
| Feature | excluder | Fulcrum |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Analytics | Analytics |
| Velocity score | 0.0 | 6.3 |
| Sparks · 30d | 0 | 0 |
| Top themes | survey-data, data-cleaning, r-package, qualtrics | gis, esri-migration, offline-maps, field-data-capture |
| Last editorial update | 5d ago | 6h ago |
| Website | Visit → | — |
What is excluder?
A Qualtrics data-cleaning package that has been in maintenance mode since its CRAN acceptance.
excluder marks, checks, and excludes online-survey rows that fail quality criteria — duplicate responses, suspicious IP or geolocation, screen resolution, completion duration, preview rows. The mark_*/check_*/exclude_* verb trio and the column-renaming helpers are the whole public surface. Recent releases are dependency chasing and test robustness rather than new exclusion criteria.
What is Fulcrum?
Fulcrum is betting its whole map stack on Esri, with a hard Google Maps cutoff on September 1.
Fulcrum is a field data collection platform, and nearly every entry in the last month touches mapping. The web app ships weekly fix batches for layer rendering (KML/KMZ, MBTiles, ArcGIS Feature Services), while iOS and Android push near-weekly builds against the ArcGIS SDK. The newest iOS build turns to app-level responsiveness - database queries moved off the main path and the record editor kept interactive while Photo FastFill works in the background.
excluder vs Fulcrum: editorial side-by-side
excluder
0.0ANALYTICS
A Qualtrics data-cleaning package that has been in maintenance mode since its CRAN acceptance.
◆ Current state
excluder marks, checks, and excludes online-survey rows that fail quality criteria — duplicate responses, suspicious IP or geolocation, screen resolution, completion duration, preview rows. The mark_*/check_*/exclude_* verb trio and the column-renaming helpers are the whole public surface. Recent releases are dependency chasing and test robustness rather than new exclusion criteria.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is stable and its maintenance load comes from things it does not control: the {iptools} package leaving CRAN, {tidyselect} deprecating the .data pronoun, IP-geolocation tests breaking when the underlying address data shifts. Much of that work is about staying installable, not about better exclusions. Note that several of these entries were backfilled into the feed within the same two-minute window and are not in version order.
◆ Prediction
The next release will most likely be another dependency or CRAN-check response rather than a new exclusion criterion, following the pattern of the last three.
Fulcrum
6.3ANALYTICS
Fulcrum is betting its whole map stack on Esri, with a hard Google Maps cutoff on September 1.
◆ Current state
Fulcrum is a field data collection platform, and nearly every entry in the last month touches mapping. The web app ships weekly fix batches for layer rendering (KML/KMZ, MBTiles, ArcGIS Feature Services), while iOS and Android push near-weekly builds against the ArcGIS SDK. The newest iOS build turns to app-level responsiveness - database queries moved off the main path and the record editor kept interactive while Photo FastFill works in the background.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is a full consolidation onto Esri. The legacy Google Maps engine retires on September 1 with automatic migration for anyone who has not switched, and Esri now carries Google's satellite and street basemaps so the imagery argument is neutralized. Underneath, the mobile SDK moved to ArcGIS 300.0.0 and ONNX on-device inference gave way to a new INFERENCE format. Two capabilities are visibly staged behind early access rather than shipped: Photo FastFill, and a GPS integration still described as Alpha.
◆ Prediction
Expect the weeks before September 1 to stay dominated by migration-shaped fixes and Esri parity work, with Photo FastFill the nearer of the two early-access programs to general availability given it is already running in shipped builds.
Alternatives to excluder and Fulcrum
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 excluder or Fulcrum.
RStudio
RStudio ships through release branches, and the notes are commit messages
dbt Core
dbt Fusion's second beta is adapter work: ClickHouse gets materializations, indexes, and catalogs
Holistics
Holistics keeps fencing in the AI layer it spent the summer building.
Dovetail
Dovetail spent July opening doors to other tools and August making its own rooms easier to enter.
tulpa
The 0.0.x train stops at CRAN: tulpa's engine ships to the ecosystem it already anchors.
See all excluder alternatives → · See all Fulcrum alternatives →
Recent activity from excluder and Fulcrum
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoFulcrumiOS: async database queries, non-blocking Photo FastFill
- 5d agoFulcrumWeb fixes: shared-view exports, MBTiles popups, KML and ArcGIS layers
- 7d agoFulcrumAndroid: update offline map layers in place, non-blocking Photo FastFill
- 8d agoFulcrumiOS fix: slow location resolution blocked record saves
- 13d agoFulcrumWeb: SSO email wording and ArcGIS/deck.gl version bumps
- 14d agoFulcrumAndroid fixes: ArcGIS stability, signature button, photo markup
- 1y agoexcluderInternet-dependent tests and examples made conditional
- 2y agoexcluderqualtrics_fetch2 dataset and tidyselect deprecation fixes
- 3y agoexcluderCRAN acceptance and graceful IP-lookup failure
- 3y agoexcluderdplyr 1.0.8 across()/is.na() compatibility fix
- 3y agoexcluderuse_labels(), rename_columns(), and orientation-agnostic resolution
- 3y agoexcluderSwaps iptools for ipaddress
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between excluder and Fulcrum?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Fulcrum is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 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.
Is excluder better than Fulcrum?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Fulcrum is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 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.
What are the best alternatives to excluder?
Top excluder alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "excluder alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/excluder for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Fulcrum?
Top Fulcrum alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Fulcrum alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fulcrum for the full list with editorial commentary on each.