ieugwasr
ieugwasr's release notes are a record of OpenGWAS tightening the tap.
Comparison · DevOps
frictionless-r vs ralger
A side-by-side editorial comparison of frictionless-r and ralger — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
frictionless-r vs ralger: at a glance
What is frictionless-r?
frictionless turns its internals into a public extension surface for Data Package readers
frictionless is the R reference implementation of the Frictionless Data Package standard: read, edit and write datapackage.json plus its CSV resources. The 1.3.0 release is the first to make the package aware of which standard version a file targets, and the first to expose resource objects as a documented public API rather than an internal detail. Its release history arrives in irregular archive bursts rather than a steady cadence, and version numbers in the feed are not monotonic.
What is ralger?
ralger stopped scraping only web pages and started scraping the files on them.
ralger is a scraping package that wraps rvest behind task-named functions — titles_scrap(), table_scrap(), images_scrap() and so on — aimed at users who want data out of a page without writing selector logic. After four years of quiet it returned in 2.3.0 with a different kind of function: readers for PDF, XLS, XLSX and CSV files, plus comment extraction.
frictionless-r vs ralger: editorial side-by-side
frictionless-r
3.8DEVOPS
frictionless turns its internals into a public extension surface for Data Package readers
◆ Current state
frictionless is the R reference implementation of the Frictionless Data Package standard: read, edit and write datapackage.json plus its CSV resources. The 1.3.0 release is the first to make the package aware of which standard version a file targets, and the first to expose resource objects as a documented public API rather than an internal detail. Its release history arrives in irregular archive bursts rather than a steady cadence, and version numbers in the feed are not monotonic.
◆ Where it's heading
The work has shifted from covering the standard to letting other packages build on top of it. Making resource() public, adding resource()<- for in-place overwrites, and moving package$directory and resource$read_from to attributes all separate the package's own state from the standard's properties, which is what downstream implementers need to add readers frictionless does not ship. The soft-deprecations of resources() and get_schema() point the same direction: a smaller, more deliberate public vocabulary.
◆ Prediction
The version() plumbing and the explicit warning on non-1.0 datapackage.json files read as groundwork for Data Package v2 support; expect the next substantive release to start reading v2 files rather than only detecting them.
ralger
0.0DEVOPS
ralger stopped scraping only web pages and started scraping the files on them.
◆ Current state
ralger is a scraping package that wraps rvest behind task-named functions — titles_scrap(), table_scrap(), images_scrap() and so on — aimed at users who want data out of a page without writing selector logic. After four years of quiet it returned in 2.3.0 with a different kind of function: readers for PDF, XLS, XLSX and CSV files, plus comment extraction.
◆ Where it's heading
The earlier arc was about making HTML scraping survive contact with the real web — wrapping every function in tryCatch so a dead link or missing connection returns NA with a message rather than an error, adding case-sensitivity control, widening heading extraction to h3. The 2.3.0 additions change the target rather than the robustness: the unit of interest becomes the document a page links to, not the page itself.
◆ Prediction
If the file readers follow the pattern the image functions set, expect preview-and-batch companions next — images_scrap() arrived alongside images_preview() for exactly that reason. The four-year gap before this release makes timing unpredictable.
Alternatives to frictionless-r and ralger
Other DevOps 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 frictionless-r or ralger.
bskyr
bskyr grew from a Bluesky scraper into a full read-write client, DMs included.
Sanity
Sanity is widening the surface agents can act on while forcing its own packages onto modern Node.
Dapr
Dapr is shipping fixes across three release branches at once, most of them in workflows.
rtoot
rtoot reached 1.0 by rebuilding on httr2 rather than by adding anything new.
ipumsr
ipumsr is collapsing a dozen collection-specific APIs into one extract vocabulary.
See all frictionless-r alternatives → · See all ralger alternatives →
Recent activity from frictionless-r and ralger
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 15d agofrictionless-rfrictionless 1.3.0 makes resource objects a public API ⚡
- 5mo agofrictionless-rfrictionless 1.2.1
- 10mo agofrictionless-rfrictionless 0.11.0
- 10mo agofrictionless-rfrictionless 1.1.0
- 10mo agofrictionless-rfrictionless 1.2.0
- 1y agoralgerralger 2.3.0 adds PDF, Excel and CSV scraping ⚡
- 2y agofrictionless-rfrictionless 1.0.3
- 5y agoralgerralger 2.2.2 adds attribute and missing-alt image scraping
- 5y agoralgerralger 2.2.1 adds image download and preview
- 5y agoralgerralger 2.2.0 returns NA instead of erroring on dead links
- 5y agoralgerralger 2.1.0 adds h3 headings and case-sensitive matching
- 6y agoralgerralger 2.0.1 adds fill for ragged tables
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between frictionless-r and ralger?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. frictionless-r is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 3.8 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is frictionless-r better than ralger?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. frictionless-r is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 3.8 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other DevOps products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to frictionless-r?
Top frictionless-r alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "frictionless-r alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/frictionless-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to ralger?
Top ralger alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ralger alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ralger-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.