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Comparison · Infra & APIs
formr vs prospectr
A side-by-side editorial comparison of formr and prospectr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-packages
formr vs prospectr: at a glance
What is formr?
formr's R client reached CRAN and moved its recommended path to the v1 REST API.
formr is the R-side client for formr.org, the open study framework used to run longitudinal and experience-sampling questionnaires. In May it reached CRAN for the first time, released in step with formr.org server v1.0.0, and the formr_api_* family built on the server's RESTful surface became the supported entry point. The three releases since have been repair work on the paths that move rendered output and API results.
What is prospectr?
prospectr spent its biggest release in years fixing spectra it had been quietly mangling.
prospectr provides the signal-processing layer for near-infrared and visible spectroscopy in R — Savitzky-Golay and gap-segment derivatives, standard normal variate, detrending, continuum removal, splice correction, plus calibration sampling algorithms like Kennard-Stone and DUPLEX and readers for ASD and BUCHI NIRCal instrument files. The May release is the substantial one: a long list of corrections to functions that were returning wrong or missing values rather than failing.
formr vs prospectr: editorial side-by-side
formr
0.0INFRA · APIS
formr's R client reached CRAN and moved its recommended path to the v1 REST API.
◆ Current state
formr is the R-side client for formr.org, the open study framework used to run longitudinal and experience-sampling questionnaires. In May it reached CRAN for the first time, released in step with formr.org server v1.0.0, and the formr_api_* family built on the server's RESTful surface became the supported entry point. The three releases since have been repair work on the paths that move rendered output and API results.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is consolidation around the v1 API while the legacy Classic path is left running but demoted in the vignette. The complication is that CRAN's requirements and the OpenCPU server's requirements pull against each other: CRAN review pushed rendering into tempdir() with random filenames, which broke rforms.org because the server fetches a fixed knit.html, and 1.1.2 had to put it back. The 1.2.0 note describes the same write-directory problem being solved in an OpenCPU-aware way rather than reverted, alongside making dependencies installable under WASM.
◆ Prediction
Two of the last three releases were regressions in the render path, so the OpenCPU-aware write directory in 1.2.0 is the change most likely to need follow-up. The Classic formr_results() path remains in the package with no removal date announced, and nothing in these entries indicates when that ends.
prospectr
0.0INFRA · APIS
prospectr spent its biggest release in years fixing spectra it had been quietly mangling.
◆ Current state
prospectr provides the signal-processing layer for near-infrared and visible spectroscopy in R — Savitzky-Golay and gap-segment derivatives, standard normal variate, detrending, continuum removal, splice correction, plus calibration sampling algorithms like Kennard-Stone and DUPLEX and readers for ASD and BUCHI NIRCal instrument files. The May release is the substantial one: a long list of corrections to functions that were returning wrong or missing values rather than failing.
◆ Where it's heading
The recent work is corrective rather than additive, and several items changed results silently before being caught. continuumRemoval() derived its convex-hull boundary offset from a fixed one-wavelength assumption that broke for fine-resolution spectra or non-nanometre units; cochranTest() passed an invalid argument name to prcomp() and produced incorrect principal component scores; readASD() silently dropped spectra in one branch of its text path. Two file readers were leaking connections. Alongside that runs a smaller thread of decoupling preprocessing steps from each other, most visibly detrend() gaining an snv argument so polynomial detrending can run without the SNV transform that Barnes et al. bundled with it.
◆ Prediction
The detrend() decoupling is the only recent addition and it fits a broader pipeline-composition direction, so similar separation of other bundled preprocessing steps is the plausible next move. The misspelled substraction argument now carries a deprecation warning, which schedules its removal for a future release.
Alternatives to formr and prospectr
Other Infra & APIs 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 formr or prospectr.
PINstimation
A market-microstructure toolkit that keeps adding estimators as the papers land.
nzilbb.vowels
A vowel-analysis package trimming dependencies after an email address got it archived.
emuR
The R half of the EMU speech database system, fixing what was quietly broken.
BAS
A Bayesian model-averaging package spending its 2.0 on memory, not methods.
tidyplots
tidyplots keeps rebuilding its own foundations rather than layering around them.
See all formr alternatives → · See all prospectr alternatives →
Recent activity from formr and prospectr
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoformrOpenCPU-aware render directory and WASM-installable dependencies
- 1mo agoprospectrdetrend() can run without a prior SNV transformation
- 2mo agoformrHotfix: rendered output returns to knit.html
- 2mo agoformrcalculate items no longer coerced to NA by as.numeric()
- 2mo agoprospectrContinuum removal, SNV and cochranTest corrected; readers stop leaking
- 2mo agoformrv1.0.0 — first CRAN release ⚡
- 1y agoprospectrread_nircal() sample ID field fix
- 3y agoprospectrNon-UTF8 sample IDs no longer become NA
- 4y agoprospectrkenStone() bug fix
- 4y agoprospectrread_nircal() execution failure fixed
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between formr and prospectr?
Both compete on the same themes — r-packages — within Infra & APIs. formr and prospectr 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 formr better than prospectr?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. formr and prospectr 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 Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to formr?
Top formr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "formr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/formr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to prospectr?
Top prospectr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "prospectr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/prospectr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.