nflreadr
The nflverse data loader, whose releases are dictated by the NFL calendar and CRAN's archive policy
Comparison · Analytics
forrel vs piecepackr
A side-by-side editorial comparison of forrel and piecepackr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
forrel vs piecepackr: at a glance
What is forrel?
forrel is getting faster at the simulations forensic kinship work actually spends its time on.
forrel handles forensic pedigree analysis: kinship likelihood ratios, profile simulation, relationship checking, and missing person calculations. Version 1.9.0 synced with pedtools 2.11.0's loop handling, which the release notes credit with enabling complex pedigrees that were previously intractable, and moved profileSim() to mirai for parallelism. It also added fEstimate() for inbreeding coefficients and parentChildLikelihood() as a fast path for the simplest case.
What is piecepackr?
A board game graphics package runs one of the most disciplined deprecation cycles in R.
piecepackr renders game pieces — piecepack, chess, dominoes and related systems — as 2D grid graphics, 3D meshes, animations, and print-and-play PDFs. Its interface is mature enough that most releases are about managing change rather than adding capability: features get deprecated with a named replacement, live through a release or two, then get removed on schedule. The current release completes the cycle opened a year earlier, retiring the new_device and style arguments in favour of open_device and the composable font, border, background_color and edge_color set.
forrel vs piecepackr: editorial side-by-side
forrel
0.0ANALYTICS
forrel is getting faster at the simulations forensic kinship work actually spends its time on.
◆ Current state
forrel handles forensic pedigree analysis: kinship likelihood ratios, profile simulation, relationship checking, and missing person calculations. Version 1.9.0 synced with pedtools 2.11.0's loop handling, which the release notes credit with enabling complex pedigrees that were previously intractable, and moved profileSim() to mirai for parallelism. It also added fEstimate() for inbreeding coefficients and parentChildLikelihood() as a fast path for the simplest case.
◆ Where it's heading
Two long threads run through the window. One is making the common operations cheap: faster simulations through reorganized likelihood calculations, a dedicated parent-child path, dropped map attribute preservation, log-likelihoods to avoid underflow in kinshipLR(). The other is making relationship checking presentable, with checkPairwise() growing ggplot2 and plotly output, verbal relationship descriptions, and bootstrap p-values. Reference data is maintained alongside both, with the FORCE SNP panel completed and an X-chromosomal counterpart added.
◆ Prediction
With profileSim() on mirai and the loop handling synced, the next likely step is extending mirai parallelism to the other simulation-heavy functions such as exclusionPower() and the bootstrap in checkPairwise().
piecepackr
0.0ANALYTICS
A board game graphics package runs one of the most disciplined deprecation cycles in R.
◆ Current state
piecepackr renders game pieces — piecepack, chess, dominoes and related systems — as 2D grid graphics, 3D meshes, animations, and print-and-play PDFs. Its interface is mature enough that most releases are about managing change rather than adding capability: features get deprecated with a named replacement, live through a release or two, then get removed on schedule. The current release completes the cycle opened a year earlier, retiring the new_device and style arguments in favour of open_device and the composable font, border, background_color and edge_color set.
◆ Where it's heading
Two things dominate the log. The first is that deprecation discipline, unusually explicit for a package this size — every removal names its successor, and deprecations announced in one release are removed in a predictable later one. The second is defensive dependency management: version bumps pinned around bugs introduced upstream in rayrender and rayvertex, a warning class for known-buggy cairo versions with an option to suppress it, and suggested packages required for metadata embedding with clear messages when they are absent. Functionality still arrives — vectorised 3D object export that finally handles composite pieces, new crosshair grobs, a reworked colour palette — but it arrives inside that maintenance rhythm rather than driving it.
◆ Prediction
The features deprecated in this release — the preview_layout component and the 4x6 print-and-play size — are on the established path toward removal in a future version, with the documented ppdf-based replacement already in place.
Alternatives to forrel and piecepackr
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 forrel or piecepackr.
susier
Fine-mapping workhorse susieR spends its releases hunting null-effect trimming bugs
UCell
A rank-based gene signature scorer that has grown by adapting to whatever object format single-cell R uses next
detectseparation
A diagnostic package that generalized past its own name, then learned to say which kind of separation it found
brglm2
A bias-reduction package reaches 1.0 by adding an estimator built for high-dimensional logistic regression
bayestools
The JAGS toolkit under RoBMA, shipping the standardization machinery its downstream rewrite needed
See all forrel alternatives → · See all piecepackr alternatives →
Recent activity from forrel and piecepackr
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoforrelmirai parallelism and faster profile simulation
- 3mo agopiecepackrYear-old deprecations removed; new crosshair grobs added
- 10mo agopiecepackrExamples updated off the deprecated style argument
- 1y agoforrelFORCE SNP panel completed and X-chromosomal set added
- 1y agopiecepackrSuit colours redrawn and piece styling made composable
- 1y agoforrelrankProfiles() and access to special lumping
- 1y agoforrelacrossComps argument and readFam() unexported
- 1y agopiecepackr3D export vectorised, and composite pieces stop erroring
- 1y agoforrelcheckPairwise() overhauled with p-values and new plot backends
- 1y agopiecepackrrayrender pinned around an upstream bug
- 2y agopiecepackrrayvertex pinned around an upstream mesh bug
- 2y agoforrelFamilias interoperability split into pedFamilias
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between forrel and piecepackr?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. forrel and piecepackr 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 forrel better than piecepackr?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. forrel and piecepackr 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 forrel?
Top forrel alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "forrel alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/forrel for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to piecepackr?
Top piecepackr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "piecepackr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/piecepackr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.