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Comparison · Analytics

fellingdater vs osmapiR

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

fellingdater vs osmapiR: at a glance

FeaturefellingdaterosmapiR
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesdendrochronology, crossdating, archaeology, ropensciopenstreetmap, api-client, r-language, geospatial
Last editorial update3h ago1h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is fellingdater?

Went from estimating felling dates to doing the crossdating that produces them.

fellingdater estimates when a tree was felled from sapwood measurements, the core inference in dendrochronological dating of timber. Version 1.0.0 passed rOpenSci review with that scope, and the 2024 releases were mostly about the accompanying JOSS paper and user-supplied sapwood datasets. Version 1.2.0 changed the package's remit substantially, adding an entire trs_* family for tree-ring series handling: crossdating with multiple statistical measures, the Hollstein and Baillie-Pilcher t-value transformations, parallel variation percentages, synthetic series generation, and dated-series plotting.

Read the full fellingdater trajectory →

What is osmapiR?

osmapiR is the rare API client that tracks its server's wiki revision numbers in the changelog.

osmapiR wraps the full OpenStreetMap API from R — reading and writing map data, changesets, notes, GPX traces and user records — with OAuth2 where the endpoint requires it, pagination handled internally, and atomic calls vectorised. Recent releases have filled in the moderation and social surface: note subscription, user blocks, changeset discussion search. The newest release lets `bbox` arguments arrive as a character string, matrix, vector, an sf `bbox`, or a terra `SpatExtent`.

Read the full osmapiR trajectory →

fellingdater vs osmapiR: editorial side-by-side

F
fellingdater
ANALYTICS
0.0

Went from estimating felling dates to doing the crossdating that produces them.

◆ Current state

fellingdater estimates when a tree was felled from sapwood measurements, the core inference in dendrochronological dating of timber. Version 1.0.0 passed rOpenSci review with that scope, and the 2024 releases were mostly about the accompanying JOSS paper and user-supplied sapwood datasets. Version 1.2.0 changed the package's remit substantially, adding an entire trs_* family for tree-ring series handling: crossdating with multiple statistical measures, the Hollstein and Baillie-Pilcher t-value transformations, parallel variation percentages, synthetic series generation, and dated-series plotting.

◆ Where it's heading

The package has expanded backwards along the workflow. It began at the last step — given dated series, estimate the felling date — and 1.2.0 added the step before it, establishing those dates by crossdating in the first place. Version 1.2.1 is early polish on that new surface: axis control, non-syntactic column names, encoding safety in read_fh(). The direction is a single package covering the chain from raw ring widths to a felling-date estimate.

◆ Prediction

Expect the trs_* family to keep accumulating polish and additional crossdating statistics, since it is barely a year old and 1.2.1 was already fixing its plotting and top_n behaviour. Whether the two halves of the package get unified into one workflow interface is the open question the entries do not answer.

O
osmapiR
ANALYTICS
0.0

osmapiR is the rare API client that tracks its server's wiki revision numbers in the changelog.

◆ Current state

osmapiR wraps the full OpenStreetMap API from R — reading and writing map data, changesets, notes, GPX traces and user records — with OAuth2 where the endpoint requires it, pagination handled internally, and atomic calls vectorised. Recent releases have filled in the moderation and social surface: note subscription, user blocks, changeset discussion search. The newest release lets `bbox` arguments arrive as a character string, matrix, vector, an sf `bbox`, or a terra `SpatExtent`.

◆ Where it's heading

Four consecutive releases open with the same line — documentation and code updated for server-side changes, cited by OSM wiki revision range. That is a maintainer treating an evolving remote API as a versioned contract and auditing against it each cycle, which is unusual discipline and the main reason to trust this client over a hand-rolled wrapper. The second thread is fitting into R's spatial conventions rather than exposing OSM's, visible in the bbox coercion work and the httr2 upgrades landing with upstream help.

◆ Prediction

The pattern is stable enough to call: another release synchronised to the next OSM wiki revision range, adding whatever endpoints appeared and adjusting whatever changed shape.

Alternatives to fellingdater and osmapiR

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 fellingdater or osmapiR.

See all fellingdater alternatives → · See all osmapiR alternatives →

Recent activity from fellingdater and osmapiR

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

  1. 4mo agofellingdaterPolish for the crossdating plots and file reader
  2. 5mo agoosmapiRbbox arguments accept sf and terra objects
  3. 0y agoosmapiRNote search defaults to creation order; JSON for GPX metadata
  4. 1y agofellingdaterAdds a full crossdating and tree-ring analysis toolkit
  5. 1y agofellingdaterUser-supplied sapwood data works across all functions
  6. 1y agofellingdaterFixes fd_report() with user-defined sapwood files
  7. 1y agoosmapiRNote subscriptions and user block endpoints added
  8. 1y agoosmapiRChangeset queries gain from and to parameters
  9. 1y agoosmapiRJOSS citation added; single-tag conversion fixed
  10. 2y agoosmapiRComplete OSM API coverage arrives in one release
  11. 2y agofellingdaterJOSS paper accepted; citation updated
  12. 2y agofellingdaterAdds a workflow vignette ahead of JOSS submission

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between fellingdater and osmapiR?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. fellingdater and osmapiR 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 fellingdater better than osmapiR?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. fellingdater and osmapiR 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 fellingdater?

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

What are the best alternatives to osmapiR?

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