metatools
SDTM supplemental-qualifier merging got sturdier, then the package went quiet for two years.
Comparison · Analytics
FedData vs sivirep
A side-by-side editorial comparison of FedData and sivirep — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
FedData vs sivirep: at a glance
What is FedData?
FedData has spent two major versions migrating US federal geodata off R's retiring spatial stack.
FedData downloads and standardises US federal geospatial datasets — NLCD, NHD, NED, SSURGO, Daymet, GHCN, PAD-US, NASS — into consistent R objects. Two breaking majors define the current package: 3.0.0 moved returns to sf and raster and pulled data from cloud-optimised GeoTIFFs, and 4.0.0 finished the job by dropping sp and raster entirely for terra and sf. Recent releases are dataset refreshes, most recently PAD-US 4.0.
What is sivirep?
sivirep turned Colombia's SIVIGILA surveillance data into a one-call reporting package.
The 1.0.0 release of December 2024 is the substance of this feed: incidence calculation and plotting for the country, departments and municipalities, ethnicity and case-classification breakdowns, multi-year retrospectives, and a Reporte Evento template that assembles them. It was shaped by usability testing and expert review with Colombia's National Institute of Health. The two patches since are fixes, warnings and documentation.
FedData vs sivirep: editorial side-by-side
FedData
0.0ANALYTICS
FedData has spent two major versions migrating US federal geodata off R's retiring spatial stack.
◆ Current state
FedData downloads and standardises US federal geospatial datasets — NLCD, NHD, NED, SSURGO, Daymet, GHCN, PAD-US, NASS — into consistent R objects. Two breaking majors define the current package: 3.0.0 moved returns to sf and raster and pulled data from cloud-optimised GeoTIFFs, and 4.0.0 finished the job by dropping sp and raster entirely for terra and sf. Recent releases are dataset refreshes, most recently PAD-US 4.0.
◆ Where it's heading
The package tracks two moving targets at once: the R spatial stack, which it has now fully migrated onto terra and sf, and the federal agencies whose URLs, file naming and hosting keep shifting. With the dependency migration finished, releases have shrunk to single-dataset updates such as annual NLCD and PAD-US 4.0, which suggests the structural work is done and the ongoing cost is data-source maintenance.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued small releases pinned to new vintages of the underlying federal datasets, plus fixes when an agency moves or reformats a source; no further dependency-level upheaval is visible in these entries.
sivirep
0.0ANALYTICS
sivirep turned Colombia's SIVIGILA surveillance data into a one-call reporting package.
◆ Current state
The 1.0.0 release of December 2024 is the substance of this feed: incidence calculation and plotting for the country, departments and municipalities, ethnicity and case-classification breakdowns, multi-year retrospectives, and a Reporte Evento template that assembles them. It was shaped by usability testing and expert review with Colombia's National Institute of Health. The two patches since are fixes, warnings and documentation.
◆ Where it's heading
Work after 1.0.0 has gone into making the report template survive bad input rather than adding analyses — warnings when a municipality or department has no data, handlers that surface import and geo-filter errors during rendering, and an explicit note that first use of any import function needs an internet connection. English-language articles were added alongside the Spanish function interface.
◆ Prediction
Spanish-named functions paired with new English articles point at a widening audience; more translation of the guides looks likelier than new epidemiological methods.
Alternatives to FedData and sivirep
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 FedData or sivirep.
marquee
marquee is filling in the typographic details — outlines, border types, real font metrics for underlines.
logrx
A clinical-script logger that stopped shipping after its 0.2 line, changelogs made of merged PRs.
lobstr
R's object inspector is losing its view of the internals as CRAN closes off the private C API.
GSODR
A weather-station data client that broke one return type to hand back distances instead of bare IDs.
giscoR
giscoR's 1.0 moved its dataset index into the cache, so new Eurostat releases arrive without a package update.
See all FedData alternatives → · See all sivirep alternatives →
Recent activity from FedData and sivirep
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1y agosivirepReport-template error handling and English articles
- 1y agoFedDataget_padus() updated to PAD-US 4.0
- 1y agosivirepLocale tag fix and smaller CRAN examples
- 1y agosivirepIncidence, ethnicity and geographic analysis for SIVIGILA data ⚡
- 1y agoFedDataAnnual NLCD access added; get_nass() retired
- 2y agoFedDatasp and raster dropped; everything returns terra or sf ⚡
- 3y agoFedDataGHCN moves to https; NHD handles empty and odd geometries
- 3y agoFedDataAll raster writing moves to terra
- 3y agoFedDataVersion 3 rebuilds on sf and cloud-optimised GeoTIFFs ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between FedData and sivirep?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. FedData and sivirep 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 FedData better than sivirep?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. FedData and sivirep 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 FedData?
Top FedData alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "FedData alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/feddata for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to sivirep?
Top sivirep alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "sivirep alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/sivirep for the full list with editorial commentary on each.