pins
pins keeps adding a storage backend per release while retiring its original API
Comparison · Analytics
ggpubr vs readxl
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ggpubr and readxl — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
ggpubr vs readxl: at a glance
What is ggpubr?
ggpubr reached 1.0.0 with p-value formatting presets for specific journals
ggpubr adds publication-ready statistics and annotation to ggplot2. Two releases define its capability: 0.5.0 introduced the stat_*_test family and geom_pwc() for pairwise comparison brackets, and 1.0.0 added p-value formatting presets matching named journal house styles. In between, most releases are ggplot2 and dplyr deprecation chasing.
What is readxl?
readxl has shipped almost nothing but vendored-dependency upkeep since 2022.
readxl reads Excel files into R without requiring Excel, bundling the libxls and RapidXML C libraries. Four of its last six releases state outright that they contain no user-facing changes, existing instead to satisfy CRAN, silence a sanitizer warning, or re-embed a patched libxls.
ggpubr vs readxl: editorial side-by-side
ggpubr
0.0ANALYTICS
ggpubr reached 1.0.0 with p-value formatting presets for specific journals
◆ Current state
ggpubr adds publication-ready statistics and annotation to ggplot2. Two releases define its capability: 0.5.0 introduced the stat_*_test family and geom_pwc() for pairwise comparison brackets, and 1.0.0 added p-value formatting presets matching named journal house styles. In between, most releases are ggplot2 and dplyr deprecation chasing.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is moving from drawing statistics to matching the conventions of where they get published - style presets are a different kind of feature from a new test. That sits on a persistent maintenance load: after_stat migrations, linewidth parameters, R-devel changing how the Wilcoxon test handles ties. ggpubr absorbs upstream deprecations so that figure code written years ago keeps rendering.
◆ Prediction
Expect the preset list to grow as users request their own journals' conventions, and the deprecation-chasing to continue with each ggplot2 release; the statistical test coverage looks complete enough that additions there would be surprising.
readxl
0.0ANALYTICS
readxl has shipped almost nothing but vendored-dependency upkeep since 2022.
◆ Current state
readxl reads Excel files into R without requiring Excel, bundling the libxls and RapidXML C libraries. Four of its last six releases state outright that they contain no user-facing changes, existing instead to satisfy CRAN, silence a sanitizer warning, or re-embed a patched libxls.
◆ Where it's heading
The real work has become stewardship of vendored C code: absorbing libxls security fixes and keeping the package compiling across Alpine, UBSAN and successive cpp11 versions. 1.5.0 breaks the streak only slightly, with a network-drive permission warning fix and a cpp11 floor raised to dodge a segfault.
◆ Prediction
Expect the same rhythm — releases triggered by toolchain breakage or an upstream libxls patch rather than new spreadsheet-reading capability.
Alternatives to ggpubr and readxl
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 ggpubr or readxl.
tsibble
tsibble shipped one release in five and a half years - the data structure is finished
yardstick
yardstick made fairness metrics a first-class part of tidymodels evaluation
tune
tune extends tuning past the model itself to postprocessors, and adds a second parallel backend
leaflet
leaflet relicensed to MIT and finished migrating off R's retired spatial stack
bigrquery
bigrquery went MIT, then handed its slowest path to the BigQuery Storage API
See all ggpubr alternatives → · See all readxl alternatives →
Recent activity from ggpubr and readxl
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoggpubrJournal-specific p-value formatting presets in 1.0.0 ⚡
- 2mo agoreadxlreadxl 1.5.0 stops false access-denied warnings on network drives
- 5mo agoggpubrRaises R and dplyr minimums, migrates off deprecated syntax
- 9mo agoggpubrPins Wilcoxon p-values against an R-devel change
- 1y agoggpubrFixes after_stat() namespace failures in reverse dependencies
- 1y agoreadxlreadxl 1.4.5 clears a gcc UBSAN warning
- 1y agoreadxlreadxl 1.4.4 embeds libxls 1.6.3 with vulnerability fixes
- 3y agoreadxlreadxl 1.4.3 ships with no user-facing changes
- 3y agoggpubrggadjust_pvalue() and reproducible jitter seeds
- 3y agoreadxlreadxl 1.4.2 embeds a libxls build fixing CVE-2021-27836
- 3y agoggpubrgeom_pwc() and the stat_*_test family arrive ⚡
- 3y agoreadxlreadxl 1.4.1 regenerates help files for valid HTML5
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ggpubr and readxl?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ggpubr and readxl 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 ggpubr better than readxl?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggpubr and readxl 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 ggpubr?
Top ggpubr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggpubr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggpubr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to readxl?
Top readxl alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "readxl alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/readxl for the full list with editorial commentary on each.