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Comparison · Infra & APIs

ggfootball vs ggprism

A side-by-side editorial comparison of ggfootball and ggprism — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

Shared themes:visualization

ggfootball vs ggprism: at a glance

Featureggfootballggprism
SectorInfra & APIsInfra & APIs
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themessports-analytics, r-package, data-scraping, expected-goalsggplot2, themes, visualization, compatibility
Last editorial update2h ago1h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is ggfootball?

A football-viz package just swapped scraping for an API and broke its own output to do it.

ggfootball is a small R package for plotting expected-goals and shot data, sourced from Understat. Four releases are visible. The 0.2.x line was argument tidying and dependency pruning; 0.3.0 replaced the data-acquisition layer wholesale, moving get_match_shots() from HTML parsing onto Understat's AJAX endpoints and changing the returned column names in the process.

Read the full ggfootball trajectory →

What is ggprism?

A Prism-styled ggplot2 theme in maintenance, now surviving ggplot2 4.0.

ggprism reproduces GraphPad Prism's look inside ggplot2 through themes, axis guides, palettes and p-value brackets, and has been feature-stable since its 2021 CRAN debut. The only release in the recent window is a compatibility pass for ggplot2 v4.0.0. The rest of the visible history is the original 2021 launch sequence.

Read the full ggprism trajectory →

ggfootball vs ggprism: editorial side-by-side

G
ggfootball
INFRA · APIS
0.0

A football-viz package just swapped scraping for an API and broke its own output to do it.

◆ Current state

ggfootball is a small R package for plotting expected-goals and shot data, sourced from Understat. Four releases are visible. The 0.2.x line was argument tidying and dependency pruning; 0.3.0 replaced the data-acquisition layer wholesale, moving get_match_shots() from HTML parsing onto Understat's AJAX endpoints and changing the returned column names in the process.

◆ Where it's heading

The direction is away from scraped HTML and toward a thinner, more defensible package: four dependencies dropped in 0.3.0 on top of qdapRegex in 0.2.1, input validation added, error messages rewritten. Both breaking changes so far were accepted rather than deferred, which reads as a maintainer treating pre-1.0 as the window to get the shape right. The package is willing to break callers for structural reasons, not cosmetic ones.

◆ Prediction

With the scraper rebuilt and the dependency surface trimmed, the next releases are likely to stabilise the new column names and extend the plotting side, which has seen nothing since 0.2.0. A 1.0 would be the signal that the data structure is now considered fixed.

G
ggprism
INFRA · APIS
0.0

A Prism-styled ggplot2 theme in maintenance, now surviving ggplot2 4.0.

◆ Current state

ggprism reproduces GraphPad Prism's look inside ggplot2 through themes, axis guides, palettes and p-value brackets, and has been feature-stable since its 2021 CRAN debut. The only release in the recent window is a compatibility pass for ggplot2 v4.0.0. The rest of the visible history is the original 2021 launch sequence.

◆ Where it's heading

The package now moves on upstream's clock rather than its own: releases appear when ggplot2 makes a breaking change, and the content is deprecation cleanup and test repair. The 2021 entries show where the capability surface was set, and it has not widened since.

◆ Prediction

The next release is most likely another ggplot2 compatibility pass rather than new guides or palettes.

Alternatives to ggfootball and ggprism

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 ggfootball or ggprism.

See all ggfootball alternatives → · See all ggprism alternatives →

Recent activity from ggfootball and ggprism

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 6mo agoggfootballggfootball 0.3.0
  2. 6mo agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.2
  3. 1y agoggprismggplot2 4.0 compatibility fixes for theme_prism()
  4. 1y agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.1
  5. 1y agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.0
  6. 5y agoggprismVignette figure and test fixes ahead of ggplot2 3.4
  7. 5y agoggprismadd_pvalue() accepts more input column layouts
  8. 5y agoggprismFirst CRAN submission after the GitHub release
  9. 5y agoggprismInitial release: Prism themes, guides, palettes, p-value brackets

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between ggfootball and ggprism?

Both compete on the same themes — visualization — within Infra & APIs. ggfootball and ggprism 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 ggfootball better than ggprism?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggfootball and ggprism 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 ggfootball?

Top ggfootball alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggfootball alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggfootball for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to ggprism?

Top ggprism alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggprism alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggprism for the full list with editorial commentary on each.