qqman
The Manhattan-plot package for GWAS results, finished and dormant since 2017.
A side-by-side editorial comparison of fossilsim and omock — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
A fossil-record simulator that quietly grew a trait-evolution engine.
FossilSim is a mature R package for simulating fossil records on phylogenetic trees, and its release cadence reflects that: long gaps punctuated by a single capability addition. The last four releases span three years, with the most recent being a compatibility sync to its companion Shiny front-end rather than new functionality. The core simulation surface has been stable since 2022.
A mock-data generator for OMOP studies that keeps widening what it can fake.
omock builds synthetic OMOP Common Data Model tables so packages in the darwin-eu and OHDSI ecosystem can be tested without touching patient data. The 0.7.0 release adds concept set subsetting with its own vignette, unit and value support in mockMeasurement, observation date validation and cohort attrition initialization, while deprecating mockConcepts. Releases arrive as PR digests rather than written notes.
FossilSim is a mature R package for simulating fossil records on phylogenetic trees, and its release cadence reflects that: long gaps punctuated by a single capability addition. The last four releases span three years, with the most recent being a compatibility sync to its companion Shiny front-end rather than new functionality. The core simulation surface has been stable since 2022.
The arc runs from sampling mechanics toward simulating what the organisms actually were. Version 2.2.0 taught the package to handle occurrence data for occurrence birth-death models; 2.3.0 then added trait simulation under Mk, BM and OU, which is a different kind of output than fossil ages. Since then the work has been maintenance and keeping the FossilSimShiny GUI in step, suggesting the authors consider the current model set feature-complete.
The pairing of the 2.3.3 release with a FossilSimShiny version bump points to the GUI, not the library, as where the next visible work lands. The entries do not show enough activity to predict a specific new model family.
omock builds synthetic OMOP Common Data Model tables so packages in the darwin-eu and OHDSI ecosystem can be tested without touching patient data. The 0.7.0 release adds concept set subsetting with its own vignette, unit and value support in mockMeasurement, observation date validation and cohort attrition initialization, while deprecating mockConcepts. Releases arrive as PR digests rather than written notes.
The package has been moving from generating tables to shipping and managing reference datasets — mockDatasets arrived in 0.4.0, mockCdmFromDataset gained a source argument in 0.5.0, and 0.6.1 added download retry handling plus an internal GiBleed dataset after the hosted files moved. The recent work is filling in CDM fidelity: type concepts, measurement units, attrition, and guards for degenerate cases like an empty person table.
Expect coverage to keep extending table by table toward the parts of the CDM that omock still cannot mock, with mockConcepts removed outright once the concept set subsetting path settles.
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 fossilsim or omock.
The Manhattan-plot package for GWAS results, finished and dormant since 2017.
The R package for CODATA constants rebuilt its symbol table on NIST's naming so future updates stop being hand work.
The R client for AusTraits spends its releases chasing the dataset it reads.
A ggplot2 layer for seasonal adjustment output, filling in one plot type at a time.
Reference-based multiple imputation tables, shipping only what CRAN checks demand.
An MMRM tabulation package that has published nothing since its 2024 CRAN releases.
See all fossilsim alternatives → · See all omock alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. fossilsim and omock 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.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. fossilsim and omock 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.
Top fossilsim alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "fossilsim alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fossilsim-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top omock alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "omock alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/omock-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.