tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Comparison · Analytics
excluder vs simtrial
A side-by-side editorial comparison of excluder and simtrial — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
excluder vs simtrial: at a glance
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 simtrial?
A fixed-design trial simulator grew a pluggable test framework, then spent a year proving the numbers
simtrial simulates time-to-event clinical trials and applies the tests used to analyse them — logrank, weighted logrank, MaxCombo, RMST, milestone. The 0.4.0 release turned it from a fixed-sample simulator into a group sequential one and standardised every test behind a common output contract, and the releases since have been about making that machinery correct and fast enough to run at scale. Version 1.0.0 arrived in June 2025 with the API settled and three vignettes explaining both the one-call and build-it-yourself paths.
excluder vs simtrial: 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.
simtrial
0.0ANALYTICS
A fixed-design trial simulator grew a pluggable test framework, then spent a year proving the numbers
◆ Current state
simtrial simulates time-to-event clinical trials and applies the tests used to analyse them — logrank, weighted logrank, MaxCombo, RMST, milestone. The 0.4.0 release turned it from a fixed-sample simulator into a group sequential one and standardised every test behind a common output contract, and the releases since have been about making that machinery correct and fast enough to run at scale. Version 1.0.0 arrived in June 2025 with the API settled and three vignettes explaining both the one-call and build-it-yourself paths.
◆ Where it's heading
Post-1.0 the work is almost entirely statistical correctness and speed, and it is concentrated in sim_gs_n(): one-sided efficacy bounds, stratified targeted-event cut dates, a helper that derives cuttings straight from the design object. Performance moves in one direction throughout — dplyr replaced by data.table, foreach combination replaced by manual assembly, parallelisation added to sim_fixed_n() — because simulation-based operating characteristics are only useful if you can afford enough replications.
◆ Prediction
The recent fixes cluster on stratified and group sequential paths, so the next release most likely continues there rather than adding a new test type. The cut_from_design() helper suggests tighter coupling to gsDesign2 design objects is the direction of travel.
Alternatives to excluder and simtrial
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 simtrial.
Tplyr
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
rlistings
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
hoardr
A cache-directory helper that has shipped nothing but CRAN-triggered patches for seven years.
gigs
gigs redesigned its whole conversion API for rOpenSci, then spent three releases getting the docs to build.
riem
A weather-data client that keeps rewriting its HTTP layer while slowly tightening its API.
See all excluder alternatives → · See all simtrial alternatives →
Recent activity from excluder and simtrial
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8mo agosimtrialOne-sided efficacy bound and stratified cut date corrected
- 11mo agosimtrialsim_gs_n moved to data.table; stratified design example added
- 1y agosimtrial1.0.0 settles the wlr interface and documents both simulation paths
- 1y agoexcluderInternet-dependent tests and examples made conditional
- 1y agosimtrialMilestone Z-score denominator corrected; parallel sim_fixed_n arrives
- 2y agosimtrialChecks pass without Suggests dependencies
- 2y agosimtrialRMST and milestone tests, plus a user-definable cut and test framework ⚡
- 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 simtrial?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. excluder and simtrial 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 excluder better than simtrial?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. excluder and simtrial 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.
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 simtrial?
Top simtrial alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "simtrial alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/simtrial for the full list with editorial commentary on each.