nflseedR
nflseedR rewrote its simulator from scratch and put the original on a deprecation clock.
Comparison · Analytics
fastml vs tEDM
A side-by-side editorial comparison of fastml and tEDM — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
fastml vs tEDM: at a glance
What is fastml?
fastml added survival modelling and leakage-proof resampling, moving past classification and regression.
A tidymodels-based AutoML wrapper that trains, tunes and compares many engines from one call. The 0.6.x line added engine-specific tuning parameters, class-imbalance handling, early stopping and DALEX-based explainability. The 0.7.5 release is far larger: a full survival analysis task with its own engines, MICE imputation and integrated Brier scoring, plus unbiased nested cross-validation, grouped, blocked and rolling resampling helpers, fold-wise imputation, recipe leakage checks, and a sandbox for user-supplied preprocessing.
What is tEDM?
The temporal half of the stscl EDM pair, tracking its spatial sibling
tEDM applies empirical dynamic modeling to time series — cross mapping, convergent cross mapping and the logistic map — as the temporal counterpart to spEDM, with which it shares a maintainer and a C++ core. The recent releases are consolidation rather than expansion: index handling in cross mapping corrected, generics taught to accept varying E, k and tau, and the associated paper now cited in the README. Only three releases are visible in the feed.
fastml vs tEDM: editorial side-by-side
fastml
0.0ANALYTICS
fastml added survival modelling and leakage-proof resampling, moving past classification and regression.
◆ Current state
A tidymodels-based AutoML wrapper that trains, tunes and compares many engines from one call. The 0.6.x line added engine-specific tuning parameters, class-imbalance handling, early stopping and DALEX-based explainability. The 0.7.5 release is far larger: a full survival analysis task with its own engines, MICE imputation and integrated Brier scoring, plus unbiased nested cross-validation, grouped, blocked and rolling resampling helpers, fold-wise imputation, recipe leakage checks, and a sandbox for user-supplied preprocessing.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is moving from convenience wrapper to something that has to be defensible statistically. Nested cross-validation, fold-wise rather than up-front imputation, and explicit leakage checks are all corrections to the shortcuts that make AutoML easy and its scores optimistic. Survival adds a third task type alongside classification and regression, and it arrived with its own metrics rather than being bolted onto the existing ones. Note the entry body is cut off at 8,000 characters, so the release is larger than what is shown.
◆ Prediction
Expect the remaining survival engines to fill in and the sandboxing of custom preprocessing to tighten, since both were still being iterated on within this same release's commit list.
tEDM
0.0ANALYTICS
The temporal half of the stscl EDM pair, tracking its spatial sibling
◆ Current state
tEDM applies empirical dynamic modeling to time series — cross mapping, convergent cross mapping and the logistic map — as the temporal counterpart to spEDM, with which it shares a maintainer and a C++ core. The recent releases are consolidation rather than expansion: index handling in cross mapping corrected, generics taught to accept varying E, k and tau, and the associated paper now cited in the README. Only three releases are visible in the feed.
◆ Where it's heading
tEDM moves in lockstep with spEDM. Configurable distance metrics, varying E/k/tau inputs, strict floating-point comparison and the S3 plotting font unification all appear in both packages within days or weeks, as does the maintainer surname correction. The recent balance has tilted toward correcting library and prediction index handling — the kind of repeated attention that suggests the indexing model was the weak point of the shared core.
◆ Prediction
Expect tEDM to keep inheriting the shared-core changes spEDM lands, with its own releases staying small and centred on cross-mapping parameter handling rather than new method surface.
Alternatives to fastml and tEDM
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 fastml or tEDM.
TLF-Library
The Open Systems Pharmacology plotting layer spent 2025 absorbing a ggplot2 major break.
skylight
A frozen astronomical model quietly became the inner loop of its sibling's optimizer.
randomwalk
randomwalk spent every release getting an R simulation to run in the browser, not on a server.
abclass
abclass built out angle-based classifiers in 2022, then went quiet except for CRAN upkeep.
churon
churon is spending its entire release history getting a Rust ONNX binding through CRAN.
Recent activity from fastml and tEDM
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 4mo agotEDMMaintainer name corrected, published paper cited
- 7mo agotEDMCross-mapping index handling corrected, generics accept varying E, k, tau
- 8mo agofastmlVersion 0.7.5 ⚡
- 11mo agotEDMConfigurable distance metrics for cross mapping
- 1y agofastmlEngine-specific tuning, imbalance handling and explainability
- 1y agofastmlSingle-workflow evaluation fix
- 1y agofastmlVersion 0.5.0
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between fastml and tEDM?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. fastml and tEDM 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 fastml better than tEDM?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. fastml and tEDM 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 fastml?
Top fastml alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "fastml alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fastml for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to tEDM?
Top tEDM alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "tEDM alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tedm for the full list with editorial commentary on each.