tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Comparison · Analytics
hoardr vs rtflite
A side-by-side editorial comparison of hoardr and rtflite — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
hoardr vs rtflite: at a glance
What is hoardr?
A cache-directory helper that has shipped nothing but CRAN-triggered patches for seven years.
hoardr manages local cache directories for other R packages — where files go, how they are keyed, whether they exist. It underpins caching in several rOpenSci data clients. The last functional additions were in 2018; everything since is a patch issued because CRAN reported a test failure or the maintainer changed.
What is rtflite?
rtflite stopped being an RTF writer and became the conversion layer for clinical table output.
rtflite generates the RTF tables clinical study reports are built from, a Python answer to the R tooling that has owned this niche. Over one dense month it grew a full export path: DOCX in 2.2.0, DOCX concatenation in 2.3.0, a configurable LibreOffice converter in 2.4.0, and HTML plus PDF in 2.5.0. The three releases since have been documentation, test infrastructure, and typing work — the feature push has stopped and consolidation has started.
hoardr vs rtflite: editorial side-by-side
hoardr
0.0ANALYTICS
A cache-directory helper that has shipped nothing but CRAN-triggered patches for seven years.
◆ Current state
hoardr manages local cache directories for other R packages — where files go, how they are keyed, whether they exist. It underpins caching in several rOpenSci data clients. The last functional additions were in 2018; everything since is a patch issued because CRAN reported a test failure or the maintainer changed.
◆ Where it's heading
This is infrastructure that has reached its final shape. Three of the last three releases were reactive: two responses to CRAN test-failure notifications, one to a maintainer handover. The single behavioural change in that stretch — forward slashes in paths on every operating system — is a consistency fix for downstream packages rather than a feature. Its release cadence is set by CRAN's checks, not by demand.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next release to be triggered by another CRAN check failure rather than by new functionality, matching every release since 2018.
rtflite
0.0ANALYTICS
rtflite stopped being an RTF writer and became the conversion layer for clinical table output.
◆ Current state
rtflite generates the RTF tables clinical study reports are built from, a Python answer to the R tooling that has owned this niche. Over one dense month it grew a full export path: DOCX in 2.2.0, DOCX concatenation in 2.3.0, a configurable LibreOffice converter in 2.4.0, and HTML plus PDF in 2.5.0. The three releases since have been documentation, test infrastructure, and typing work — the feature push has stopped and consolidation has started.
◆ Where it's heading
Every format addition routes through the same LibreOffice converter rather than a per-format implementation, and 2.4.0's breaking change made that converter an injectable object you can configure and reuse. That is the shape of a package expecting to run inside a pipeline that produces hundreds of tables, not one that converts a document at a time. The recent quiet — snapshot tests moved onto `pytest-r-snapshot`, docs migrated, pandas and pyarrow dropped from dev dependencies — reads as work to stay dependency-light while the surface stabilizes.
◆ Prediction
With the export matrix filled in and three consecutive infrastructure-only releases, the next substantive change is most likely on the input side — table construction and pagination — since `page_by` and `subline_by` are the only feature area still generating bug reports in these notes.
Alternatives to hoardr and rtflite
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 hoardr or rtflite.
Tplyr
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
rlistings
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
gigs
gigs redesigned its whole conversion API for rOpenSci, then spent three releases getting the docs to build.
riem
A weather-data client that keeps rewriting its HTTP layer while slowly tightening its API.
datasetjson
datasetjson rebuilt its object model to track the CDISC Dataset-JSON 1.1 schema.
See all hoardr alternatives → · See all rtflite alternatives →
Recent activity from hoardr and rtflite
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 4mo agortfliteMulti-section body typing tightened; pandas dropped from dev deps
- 7mo agortfliteAPI reference renders Pydantic field metadata
- 7mo agortfliteDocumentation site migrated to Zensical
- 7mo agortfliteSnapshot tests moved to pytest-r-snapshot
- 7mo agortfliteHTML and PDF export complete the output matrix ⚡
- 7mo agortfliteLibreOffice conversion becomes an injectable converter object
- 1y agohoardrPaths use forward slashes on every platform
- 2y agohoardrTest-only patch for a CRAN failure
- 3y agohoardrPatch release for maintainer handover
- 7y agohoardrFixes cache paths leaking between HoardClient instances
- 7y agohoardrFile-existence checks and full-path cache configuration
- 9y agohoardrCRAN disk-writing policy compliance
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between hoardr and rtflite?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. hoardr and rtflite 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 hoardr better than rtflite?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. hoardr and rtflite 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 hoardr?
Top hoardr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "hoardr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/hoardr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to rtflite?
Top rtflite alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "rtflite alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rtflite for the full list with editorial commentary on each.