PurpleAir
The R client for PurpleAir sensors keeps finding its time-averaging was wrong.
Comparison · Analytics
haze vs r-owidapi
A side-by-side editorial comparison of haze and r-owidapi — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
haze vs r-owidapi: at a glance
What is haze?
Four dormant years end with a modernization pass and an off-by-one fix in the C++ core
haze does nearest-neighbour smoothing and k-d tree interpolation on brain surface meshes. It sat untouched from April 2022 until July 2026, when a single release modernized it for current R versions and corrected an off-by-one error in the C++ code. It is not on CRAN and never will be — the package exceeds 50MB against CRAN's 5MB ceiling, a constraint its own initial release notes acknowledge.
What is r-owidapi?
The R client for Our World in Data found its search had been reading a tenth of the catalog.
owidapi is a small R client for Our World in Data, covering chart data retrieval, metadata, the full chart catalog, and search over it, with experimental Shiny output helpers. It is three releases old and the most recent one is almost entirely repair: the catalog function was silently truncating at 1000 rows because of a Datasette row cap, which meant search had been operating on a fraction of what exists.
haze vs r-owidapi: editorial side-by-side
haze
2.5ANALYTICS
Four dormant years end with a modernization pass and an off-by-one fix in the C++ core
◆ Current state
haze does nearest-neighbour smoothing and k-d tree interpolation on brain surface meshes. It sat untouched from April 2022 until July 2026, when a single release modernized it for current R versions and corrected an off-by-one error in the C++ code. It is not on CRAN and never will be — the package exceeds 50MB against CRAN's 5MB ceiling, a constraint its own initial release notes acknowledge.
◆ Where it's heading
The July 2026 release arrived 56 minutes after its sibling regfusionr 0.3.0 from the same maintainer, which is the tell: this is a maintainer sweeping a set of related neuroimaging packages back into working order, not independent development on haze itself. haze is the dependency, regfusionr the consumer, and the substantive work sits on the regfusionr side. The off-by-one correction is the only change here that alters results.
◆ Prediction
Expect haze to move only when a downstream dfsp-spirit package needs it to — its cadence is driven by the sibling packages, not by its own roadmap.
r-owidapi
2.5ANALYTICS
The R client for Our World in Data found its search had been reading a tenth of the catalog.
◆ Current state
owidapi is a small R client for Our World in Data, covering chart data retrieval, metadata, the full chart catalog, and search over it, with experimental Shiny output helpers. It is three releases old and the most recent one is almost entirely repair: the catalog function was silently truncating at 1000 rows because of a Datasette row cap, which meant search had been operating on a fraction of what exists.
◆ Where it's heading
Development is about making a thin wrapper trustworthy against an upstream that moves without notice. The truncation fix pages through the catalog properly; a separate fix stops the function breaking when Our World in Data dropped a column, by parsing typed columns only when present. Tests moved to mocked responses, with a small live suite retained purely to detect schema drift and skipped on CRAN — a sensible design for a package whose main risk is that the API changes shape rather than that the code is wrong. The user-facing surface has not grown since the initial release; the work is in defending it.
◆ Prediction
On this pattern the next release is likelier to be another upstream-compatibility fix than new functionality, with the schema-drift tests the mechanism that surfaces it.
Alternatives to haze and r-owidapi
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 haze or r-owidapi.
piecepackr
A board game graphics package runs one of the most disciplined deprecation cycles in R.
e2tree
The explainable-ensemble-tree package now measures whether its own explanations are faithful.
discretefdr
The discrete-data FDR package is being pared into one piece of a larger multiple-testing suite.
contentanalysis
A scientific-text analysis package moved from counting citations to classifying argument structure.
relialearnr
The teaching arm of an R reliability suite keeps pace with whatever its analysis siblings ship.
See all haze alternatives → · See all r-owidapi alternatives →
Recent activity from haze and r-owidapi
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 18d agohazeVersion 0.3.0 -- Fixes and modernization
- 20d agor-owidapiCatalog was silently capped at 1000 charts; now paged in full
- 1y agor-owidapiRequest logic consolidated, with graceful catalog errors
- 1y agor-owidapiFirst release: data, metadata, catalog and search
- 4y agohazev0.2.0 -- kdtrees
- 4y agohazev0.1.0: Initial release
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between haze and r-owidapi?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. haze and r-owidapi are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 2.5 vs 2.5, 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 haze better than r-owidapi?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. haze and r-owidapi are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 2.5 vs 2.5, 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 haze?
Top haze alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "haze alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/haze for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to r-owidapi?
Top r-owidapi alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "r-owidapi alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/r-owidapi for the full list with editorial commentary on each.