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Comparison · Analytics

gtsummary vs wasserportal

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

Shared themes:r-package

gtsummary vs wasserportal: at a glance

Featuregtsummarywasserportal
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesclinical-tables, analysis-results-data, regression-summaries, reproducible-reportinggroundwater-monitoring, web-scraping, thingsboard, iot-telemetry
Last editorial update1h ago1h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is gtsummary?

gtsummary is quietly rebuilding itself around analysis results data, one table verb at a time.

gtsummary builds publication-ready summary, regression and survival tables for clinical and epidemiological work. Across this window it has grown in two directions at once: table composition primitives — splitting tables by rows and columns, stacking with labeled IDs, nested strata stacks, flexible merge columns — and a steadily deepening ARD layer, where tbl_ard_* functions, gather_ard() and the hierarchical table family expose the underlying analysis results data as a first-class object.

Read the full gtsummary trajectory →

What is wasserportal?

A Berlin groundwater scraper grew a full IoT publishing pipeline in two days.

wasserportal scrapes groundwater and surface water monitoring data from Wasserportal Berlin — station metadata, water levels, quality series. For its first four years that was the whole product, with releases tracking the portal's own churn: a new API version in 2023, new three-letter variable codes, and a 2026 fix decoding pages as windows-1252 because the server declares UTF-8 but emits Latin-1. In June 2026 it added a ThingsBoard integration, then extended it to self-hosted instances two days later.

Read the full wasserportal trajectory →

gtsummary vs wasserportal: editorial side-by-side

G
gtsummary
ANALYTICS
0.0

gtsummary is quietly rebuilding itself around analysis results data, one table verb at a time.

◆ Current state

gtsummary builds publication-ready summary, regression and survival tables for clinical and epidemiological work. Across this window it has grown in two directions at once: table composition primitives — splitting tables by rows and columns, stacking with labeled IDs, nested strata stacks, flexible merge columns — and a steadily deepening ARD layer, where tbl_ard_* functions, gather_ard() and the hierarchical table family expose the underlying analysis results data as a first-class object.

◆ Where it's heading

The ARD work is the through-line. Table IDs exist so gather_ard() can return a named list; hierarchical tables gained per-level sorting and targeted filtering; ARD inputs are pre-processed so sorting applies to non-standard shapes. The package is becoming a structured-results engine that happens to render tables, rather than a renderer alone. Alongside that, 2.2.0 restored data pre-processing that 2.0 had removed after the reduced functionality hurt users — a maintainer willing to reverse a major-version decision.

◆ Prediction

Expect the hierarchical and ARD functions, introduced as a preview without a full deprecation cycle, to keep stabilizing toward a settled API rather than new table types appearing.

W
wasserportal
ANALYTICS
0.0

A Berlin groundwater scraper grew a full IoT publishing pipeline in two days.

◆ Current state

wasserportal scrapes groundwater and surface water monitoring data from Wasserportal Berlin — station metadata, water levels, quality series. For its first four years that was the whole product, with releases tracking the portal's own churn: a new API version in 2023, new three-letter variable codes, and a 2026 fix decoding pages as windows-1252 because the server declares UTF-8 but emits Latin-1. In June 2026 it added a ThingsBoard integration, then extended it to self-hosted instances two days later.

◆ Where it's heading

The package is repositioning from a data-access library into the first half of a monitoring pipeline. 0.6.0 shipped push helpers, device discovery and cleanup, an importable dashboard and a GitHub Actions workflow; 0.7.0 immediately generalised the authentication so it works against self-hosted Community Edition rather than only the Cloud tier, and lifted the push from a five-station demo to the entire groundwater archive. The hardening detail in 0.7.0 — retries on 5xx, warnings when only one of two credentials is set — reads like a maintainer who has run this against a real deployment.

◆ Prediction

The obvious next step is extending the ThingsBoard path to the surface water stations, which the package has flagged as under-supported since 0.1.0. The entries show no other direction under construction.

Alternatives to gtsummary and wasserportal

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 gtsummary or wasserportal.

See all gtsummary alternatives → · See all wasserportal alternatives →

Recent activity from gtsummary and wasserportal

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

  1. 1mo agowasserportalSelf-hosted ThingsBoard support via JWT login
  2. 1mo agowasserportalThingsBoard integration turns the scraper into a pipeline
  3. 2mo agogtsummaryTheme elements no longer evaluated by default
  4. 3mo agowasserportalwindows-1252 decoding fixes umlaut handling on Windows
  5. 8mo agogtsummaryARD strata functions and finer theme control
  6. 11mo agogtsummaryPer-level hierarchical sorting and labeled stacking
  7. 1y agogtsummaryTable splitting, ID labeling, and add_difference_row
  8. 1y agogtsummaryData pre-processing restored after the 2.0 removal
  9. 1y agogtsummarytbl_merge gains explicit merge columns
  10. 3y agowasserportalExport and import functions for scraped datasets
  11. 3y agowasserportalAdapted to Wasserportal's new API version
  12. 4y agowasserportalTemperature parameter naming corrected

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between gtsummary and wasserportal?

Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. gtsummary and wasserportal 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 gtsummary better than wasserportal?

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

Top gtsummary alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "gtsummary alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/gtsummary-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to wasserportal?

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