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Comparison · Analytics
googlesheets4 vs mlr3proba
A side-by-side editorial comparison of googlesheets4 and mlr3proba — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
googlesheets4 vs mlr3proba: at a glance
What is googlesheets4?
googlesheets4's releases track Google's API and gargle's auth, not its own roadmap.
googlesheets4 is the tidyverse client for the Google Sheets API. Its recent history is dominated by authentication: retry logic for quota errors at 0.3.0, a cli-based message and error surface at 1.0.0, then successive rounds of syncing with gargle's OAuth model through the 1.1.x line. The latest release is documentation-only.
What is mlr3proba?
mlr3proba is shedding weight as its survival work moves into sibling packages
mlr3proba provides probabilistic supervised learning for mlr3 — survival analysis, density estimation, and the measures that go with them. Recent releases are almost entirely upkeep: a distr6 fork to work around an upstream problem, an ooplah fix, a predict-type correction, and registration in mlr_reflections$loaded_packages. The one deletion is telling, with LearnerDensPenalized removed after pendensity left CRAN.
googlesheets4 vs mlr3proba: editorial side-by-side
googlesheets4
0.0ANALYTICS
googlesheets4's releases track Google's API and gargle's auth, not its own roadmap.
◆ Current state
googlesheets4 is the tidyverse client for the Google Sheets API. Its recent history is dominated by authentication: retry logic for quota errors at 0.3.0, a cli-based message and error surface at 1.0.0, then successive rounds of syncing with gargle's OAuth model through the 1.1.x line. The latest release is documentation-only.
◆ Where it's heading
Reading and writing sheets is essentially feature-complete, so remaining work concentrates on credential ergonomics — service accounts, user impersonation, explicit scope access — and absorbing Google's own capacity and quota changes as they land.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next substantive release to follow a gargle auth change or a Sheets API limit revision rather than new spreadsheet functionality.
mlr3proba
0.0ANALYTICS
mlr3proba is shedding weight as its survival work moves into sibling packages
◆ Current state
mlr3proba provides probabilistic supervised learning for mlr3 — survival analysis, density estimation, and the measures that go with them. Recent releases are almost entirely upkeep: a distr6 fork to work around an upstream problem, an ooplah fix, a predict-type correction, and registration in mlr_reflections$loaded_packages. The one deletion is telling, with LearnerDensPenalized removed after pendensity left CRAN.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is being pared back rather than extended. Its README now points at survdistr and mlr3cmprsk as matured alternatives for parts of what it covers, which reads as scope being handed off, while the Cox proportional-hazards autoplot arrived from mlr3viz in the other direction. Several fixes exist to route around dependencies that broke or disappeared, which is the recurring cost of building on a long chain of specialized CRAN packages.
◆ Prediction
The dependency churn suggests more consolidation — further reliance on survdistr and mlr3cmprsk, and more learners retired when the package underneath them goes unmaintained.
Alternatives to googlesheets4 and mlr3proba
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 googlesheets4 or mlr3proba.
writexl
writexl spent nine years refusing to do formatting, then shipped all of it in 2.0.0.
rgbif
rgbif is steadily pushing users off paged searching and onto real downloads.
rstanarm
rstanarm is community-maintained now, tracking Stan and lme4 rather than adding models.
taxa
taxa started a ground-up rewrite in 2021 and has published almost nothing since.
rotl
rotl's whole release history is keeping name matching honest against a moving taxonomy.
See all googlesheets4 alternatives → · See all mlr3proba alternatives →
Recent activity from googlesheets4 and mlr3proba
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2mo agomlr3probamlr3proba 0.8.10 registers itself in the mlr3 loaded-packages registry
- 4mo agomlr3probamlr3proba 0.8.9 drops LearnerDensPenalized after pendensity left CRAN
- 5mo agomlr3probamlr3proba 0.8.8
- 5mo agomlr3probamlr3proba 0.8.7
- 9mo agomlr3probamlr3proba 0.8.5
- 10mo agomlr3probamlr3proba 0.8.4 takes over the Cox proportional-hazards autoplot
- 11mo agogooglesheets4googlesheets4 1.1.2 ships documentation updates for CRAN
- 3y agogooglesheets4googlesheets4 1.1.1 supports service-account user impersonation
- 3y agogooglesheets4googlesheets4 1.1.0 replaces OAuth app with client configuration
- 4y agogooglesheets4googlesheets4 1.0.1 tolerates invalid named ranges, sees 10M cells
- 5y agogooglesheets4googlesheets4 1.0.0 moves to cli messages and classed errors
- 5y agogooglesheets4googlesheets4 0.3.0 retries requests on quota exhaustion
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between googlesheets4 and mlr3proba?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. googlesheets4 and mlr3proba 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 googlesheets4 better than mlr3proba?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. googlesheets4 and mlr3proba 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 googlesheets4?
Top googlesheets4 alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "googlesheets4 alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/googlesheets4 for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to mlr3proba?
Top mlr3proba alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "mlr3proba alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mlr3proba for the full list with editorial commentary on each.