r2rtf
The clinical-report table engine learned Chinese, then learned to leave RTF entirely
Comparison · Analytics
forestly vs lime
A side-by-side editorial comparison of forestly and lime — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
forestly vs lime: at a glance
What is forestly?
forestly built an interactive safety review tool, then taught it to produce submission-ready RTF.
forestly renders adverse-event forest plots as interactive reactable widgets — filterable by AE category, with sliders for incidence thresholds and a toggle for the risk-difference column. Version 0.1.3 added `rtf_static_forestly()` for static RTF output, and 0.1.4 has been about giving the display owner control over what reviewers see: the CSV download button, the AE filter label, and the diff toggle can each be switched off.
What is lime?
The R port of LIME has shipped one commit in three years, and it was an xgboost compatibility patch
lime is the R implementation of local interpretable model-agnostic explanations, and it is effectively in preservation rather than development. Its last substantive feature release was 0.5.0 in 2019; 0.5.3 in 2022 recorded a maintainer handover and general upkeep; 0.5.4 in December 2025 exists solely to keep the package working across xgboost versions. Six releases span eight years, and only two of them contain features.
forestly vs lime: editorial side-by-side
forestly
0.0ANALYTICS
forestly built an interactive safety review tool, then taught it to produce submission-ready RTF.
◆ Current state
forestly renders adverse-event forest plots as interactive reactable widgets — filterable by AE category, with sliders for incidence thresholds and a toggle for the risk-difference column. Version 0.1.3 added `rtf_static_forestly()` for static RTF output, and 0.1.4 has been about giving the display owner control over what reviewers see: the CSV download button, the AE filter label, and the diff toggle can each be switched off.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc runs from a fixed interactive widget toward a configurable one with two output modes. Nearly every new argument in the last two releases exists to remove something from the display or relabel it, which suggests the users driving development are producing outputs for others to review under conventions they do not control. The x-axis range, column header, figure header and slider range arguments point the same way — this is a tool being fitted into standardised reporting rather than used ad hoc.
◆ Prediction
Given that the last two releases have consisted almost entirely of display-control arguments, the next is likely more of the same, applied to whichever parts of the interactive layout are still fixed.
lime
0.0ANALYTICS
The R port of LIME has shipped one commit in three years, and it was an xgboost compatibility patch
◆ Current state
lime is the R implementation of local interpretable model-agnostic explanations, and it is effectively in preservation rather than development. Its last substantive feature release was 0.5.0 in 2019; 0.5.3 in 2022 recorded a maintainer handover and general upkeep; 0.5.4 in December 2025 exists solely to keep the package working across xgboost versions. Six releases span eight years, and only two of them contain features.
◆ Where it's heading
The pattern is upstream-driven survival: every release since 0.5.0 responds to a change in something lime depends on — glmnet's namespace, order() semantics on data frames, xgboost's interface. The one deliberate change in that stretch was moving htmlwidgets, shiny and shinythemes to Suggests, which lightens installation for the majority of users who never open the interactive explainer. Nothing in the feed indicates work on the explanation method itself.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next release, whenever it comes, to be another compatibility patch triggered by a dependency change rather than anything touching how explanations are computed. The three-year gaps make timing unpredictable.
Alternatives to forestly and lime
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 forestly or lime.
DoseFinding
New stewardship at openpharma, then two releases adding the methods MCP-Mod was missing
webmockr
The stubbing library added httr2 support, then spent a year cutting itself free of everything else
crul
crul took mocking back from webmockr and made it a property of the client itself
dendroNetwork
Six releases, six identical bodies — the feed carries the package abstract instead of release notes
chattr
chattr deleted every LLM integration it had written and outsourced the lot to ellmer
See all forestly alternatives → · See all lime alternatives →
Recent activity from forestly and lime
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 5mo agoforestlyDownload button, AE filter label and diff toggle become optional
- 8mo agolimexgboost compatibility restored across versions
- 11mo agoforestlyStatic RTF forest plots join the interactive output ⚡
- 1y agoforestlyreactR 0.6.0 rendering fix and slider label control
- 2y agoforestlyTreatment group selection and rough-edge fixes
- 3y agoforestlyFirst release on GitHub and CRAN
- 3y agolimeMaintainer handover and general upkeep
- 5y agolimeShiny dependencies moved to Suggests
- 6y agolimeNamespace fix for glmnet changes
- 7y agolimegower_pow added and lambda aligned with the Python implementation
- 8y agolimeh2o support, NA handling, and date columns held during permutation
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between forestly and lime?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. forestly and lime 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 forestly better than lime?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. forestly and lime 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 forestly?
Top forestly alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "forestly alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/forestly for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to lime?
Top lime alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "lime alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/lime for the full list with editorial commentary on each.