pr2database
The protist reference database keeps widening past the rRNA gene it was built on.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
goat vs surveytidy
A side-by-side editorial comparison of goat and surveytidy — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
goat vs surveytidy: at a glance
What is goat?
A gene-set enrichment package that outgrew its human-only origins, then went quiet.
GOAT is a CRAN-published R package for gene set enrichment testing, now at 1.1.4. The visible arc runs from a 2024 beta through a first public CRAN release to a 1.1 line that broadened the package past human gene sets and added persistence for completed analyses. Recent releases are small: the newest ships an igraph handle on plot_network() plus bug fixes.
What is surveytidy?
surveytidy taught every dplyr verb to operate on a whole collection of surveys at once.
surveytidy is the tidyverse-facing half of a two-package survey stack, wrapping survey design objects from surveycore so filter, mutate, select and the rest work on them while carrying variable labels, value labels and a transformation log alongside the data. The May release extended that verb surface to survey_collection, the abstraction surveycore uses to hold several surveys as one object, so a pipeline written once dispatches across every member.
goat vs surveytidy: editorial side-by-side
goat
0.0INFRA · APIS
A gene-set enrichment package that outgrew its human-only origins, then went quiet.
◆ Current state
GOAT is a CRAN-published R package for gene set enrichment testing, now at 1.1.4. The visible arc runs from a 2024 beta through a first public CRAN release to a 1.1 line that broadened the package past human gene sets and added persistence for completed analyses. Recent releases are small: the newest ships an igraph handle on plot_network() plus bug fixes.
◆ Where it's heading
The substantive expansion happened in the 1.1 cycle; everything since has been maintenance and plotting ergonomics. Each release since 1.1 touches one function and returns something callers previously had to reconstruct, which reads as a package settling into a stable API and responding to individual user requests rather than pursuing new scope. The 13-month gap between 1.1.2 and 1.1.4 puts it firmly in low-cadence maintenance.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued point releases that expose internals from the plotting functions or refresh the bundled GO release, not new analysis capability. The entries give no signal of a planned 1.2.
surveytidy
0.0INFRA · APIS
surveytidy taught every dplyr verb to operate on a whole collection of surveys at once.
◆ Current state
surveytidy is the tidyverse-facing half of a two-package survey stack, wrapping survey design objects from surveycore so filter, mutate, select and the rest work on them while carrying variable labels, value labels and a transformation log alongside the data. The May release extended that verb surface to survey_collection, the abstraction surveycore uses to hold several surveys as one object, so a pipeline written once dispatches across every member.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is being built in two layers that arrive in order: vector-level transformations first, structural dispatch second. The make_* family in 0.4.0 handles the recoding that survey work actually consists of — labelled to factor, multi-level to dichotomous, scale reversal, valence flipping — with value labels propagating automatically. Collection support then applies data-masking, tidyselect, grouping, slicing and collapsing verbs per survey, with joins explicitly refused and a typed message reporting which surveys were skipped. Metadata fidelity is the recurring bug source: labels surviving across(), stale labels left behind by recoding, the transformation log keeping up with what the verbs did.
◆ Prediction
Joins are the one verb family that errors on collections, with users directed to join before constructing the collection, so that restriction is the clearest outstanding gap. The re-export of surveycore's collection constructors suggests the package is positioning itself as the single import users need, which points toward more re-exports as surveycore's stable API settles.
Alternatives to goat and surveytidy
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 goat or surveytidy.
ggalign
Composable aligned layouts, rebuilt on S7 while ggplot2 4.0 lands underneath.
prioritizr
Conservation planning absorbs the literature's target-setting rules as code.
jSDM
Joint species distribution models in Gibbs-sampled C++, quiet since 2023.
rsofun
An ecosystem model starts tracking carbon isotopes and land-use change.
usmap
Ten years in, US mapping splits its data out and finally adds Puerto Rico.
See all goat alternatives → · See all surveytidy alternatives →
Recent activity from goat and surveytidy
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2mo agosurveytidymutate() syncs metadata for across() recodes
- 3mo agosurveytidydplyr and tidyr verbs dispatch across survey collections
- 5mo agosurveytidyFive label-aware recoding functions for use inside mutate()
- 6mo agogoatplot_network() now hands back the igraph object
- 1y agogoatFix for a reduce_genesets() infinite loop
- 1y agogoatGene sets beyond human, and analyses you can reload ⚡
- 2y agogoatFirst public release, now on CRAN ⚡
- 2y agogoatplot_lollipop() gains barplots and an effect-size axis
- 2y agogoatBeta 0.9.5 tagged, with no changes described
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between goat and surveytidy?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. goat and surveytidy 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 goat better than surveytidy?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. goat and surveytidy 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 goat?
Top goat alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "goat alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/goat for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to surveytidy?
Top surveytidy alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "surveytidy alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/surveytidy for the full list with editorial commentary on each.