mlr3proba
mlr3proba is shedding weight as its survival work moves into sibling packages
Comparison · Analytics
forecast vs tidytext
A side-by-side editorial comparison of forecast and tidytext — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
forecast vs tidytext: at a glance
What is forecast?
After years of pure maintenance, forecast 9.0.0 reopens the package
forecast is the long-established R forecasting package that fable was meant to succeed. For several years its releases were RNG fixes, base-R compatibility and documentation. Then 9.0.0 arrived with a batch of new model constructors, wider prediction-interval support and a rewritten accuracy() built on S3 methods.
What is tidytext?
Finished, widely taught, and shipping roxygen fixes.
tidytext is the package that made unnest_tokens() and the tidy-data approach to text analysis standard, and it has reached the point where its releases contain nothing to announce. The last three are roxygen package anchors, alt text on vignette figures, and a single bug fix in one stm tidier. The most recent substantive changes were in 0.4.0 and 0.3.3 — stm tidiers for high FREX and lift words, a labels function for scale_x_reordered(), and support for tidying STM models that use content covariates.
forecast vs tidytext: editorial side-by-side
forecast
0.0ANALYTICS
After years of pure maintenance, forecast 9.0.0 reopens the package
◆ Current state
forecast is the long-established R forecasting package that fable was meant to succeed. For several years its releases were RNG fixes, base-R compatibility and documentation. Then 9.0.0 arrived with a batch of new model constructors, wider prediction-interval support and a rewritten accuracy() built on S3 methods.
◆ Where it's heading
The major version reframes forecast around explicit *_model() constructors — mean, random walk, spline, theta, Croston — rather than the older function-per-method style, and the 9.0.x patches since have been performance and argument-handling cleanups on top. That is an active maintenance line, not a package winding down in favour of fable.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued 9.0.x patches consolidating the new constructors and their forecast methods, with the older interfaces kept working alongside them.
tidytext
0.0ANALYTICS
Finished, widely taught, and shipping roxygen fixes.
◆ Current state
tidytext is the package that made unnest_tokens() and the tidy-data approach to text analysis standard, and it has reached the point where its releases contain nothing to announce. The last three are roxygen package anchors, alt text on vignette figures, and a single bug fix in one stm tidier. The most recent substantive changes were in 0.4.0 and 0.3.3 — stm tidiers for high FREX and lift words, a labels function for scale_x_reordered(), and support for tidying STM models that use content covariates.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is stability, and the release triggers are external. quanteda releases force updates to the dfm tidiers, a Matrix release forces another, tokenizers deprecating its tweet tokenizer forces removal of the tweet-specific functions here, and CRAN's Rd anchor requirement produces a release of its own. Nothing in the recent stream suggests new capability is planned, and for a package this embedded in teaching material that is a defensible position rather than a problem.
◆ Prediction
The entries do not support predicting new features. The likely next release is another compatibility update prompted by quanteda, stm, or a CRAN documentation requirement.
Alternatives to forecast and tidytext
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 forecast or tidytext.
mlr3viz
mlr3viz keeps the ecosystem's plots working while the plots themselves move out
mlr3tuning
mlr3tuning is rebuilding its async machinery under a stable public surface
timetk
timetk swallowed anomalize whole, then went quiet for two years
modelbased
modelbased is turning marginal effects into a full contrast grammar
parameters
easystats' parameters package absorbs one more model class every few weeks
See all forecast alternatives → · See all tidytext alternatives →
Recent activity from forecast and tidytext
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 4mo agoforecastFixes for checkresiduals() and mstl() lambda handling
- 5mo agoforecastFaster ARFIMA search and forecast.mlm() argument handling
- 7mo agoforecastforecast 9.0.0 adds five model constructors and rewrites accuracy() ⚡
- 1y agotidytextUpdate roxygen package anchors for CRAN
- 1y agoforecastDocumentation and bug-fix release
- 2y agoforecastRNG state and base-R head/tail compatibility
- 2y agotidytextFigure alt text and a quanteda v4 vignette update
- 2y agoforecastMuch faster hfitted() for ARIMA and ETS models
- 3y agotidytextFix the FREX stm tidier
- 3y agotidytextFREX and lift tidiers added; tweet tokenizers removed
- 3y agotidytextUpdate dfm tidier for the upcoming Matrix release
- 4y agotidytextReordered scales take a labels function; STM content models tidied
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between forecast and tidytext?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. forecast and tidytext 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 forecast better than tidytext?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. forecast and tidytext 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 forecast?
Top forecast alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "forecast alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/forecast-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to tidytext?
Top tidytext alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "tidytext alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tidytext for the full list with editorial commentary on each.