tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Comparison · Analytics
hoardr vs sofa
A side-by-side editorial comparison of hoardr and sofa — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-packageropensci
hoardr vs sofa: 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 sofa?
A CouchDB client for R whose recent work is all test infrastructure, not new routes.
sofa wraps the CouchDB HTTP API for R — database and document CRUD, Mango queries and indexes, design documents, replication, and attachments, organized around a Cushion connection object. Feature development effectively stopped after 0.4.0 brought CouchDB v3 compatibility in 2020. The two 2026 releases are a testing and packaging overhaul: 0.4.1 rebuilt the suite around a crul-mocked fake CouchDB so tests no longer need Cloudant or a local Docker instance, reaching 100% coverage, and 0.4.2 cleared CRAN check notes.
hoardr vs sofa: 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.
sofa
2.5ANALYTICS
A CouchDB client for R whose recent work is all test infrastructure, not new routes.
◆ Current state
sofa wraps the CouchDB HTTP API for R — database and document CRUD, Mango queries and indexes, design documents, replication, and attachments, organized around a Cushion connection object. Feature development effectively stopped after 0.4.0 brought CouchDB v3 compatibility in 2020. The two 2026 releases are a testing and packaging overhaul: 0.4.1 rebuilt the suite around a crul-mocked fake CouchDB so tests no longer need Cloudant or a local Docker instance, reaching 100% coverage, and 0.4.2 cleared CRAN check notes.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a rOpenSci package being brought back to a maintainable state rather than extended. The 0.4.1 decision to mock the server is the consequential one — it decouples CI from a live CouchDB, which is what made the cross-platform GitHub Actions workflow and full coverage possible at all. Two genuine bugs surfaced in that process, in db_replicate() URL construction against non-Cloudant servers and db_alldocs(disk=) not returning the documented file path, suggesting the untested paths had drifted.
◆ Prediction
With the test harness now self-contained, the next plausible move is catching up on CouchDB routes added since v3 rather than further infrastructure work, though nothing in these entries commits to it.
Alternatives to hoardr and sofa
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 sofa.
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.
Recent activity from hoardr and sofa
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 21d agosofaCRAN check notes and metadata corrections
- 2mo agosofaTests moved to a mocked CouchDB, coverage to 100%
- 1y agohoardrPaths use forward slashes on every platform
- 2y agohoardrTest-only patch for a CRAN failure
- 3y agohoardrPatch release for maintainer handover
- 6y agosofaCouchDB v3 support, doc_upsert() and bulk get
- 7y agohoardrFixes cache paths leaking between HoardClient instances
- 7y agohoardrFile-existence checks and full-path cache configuration
- 8y agosofaMango index management and batched design search
- 9y agohoardrCRAN disk-writing policy compliance
- 9y agosofasofa v0.2.0
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between hoardr and sofa?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package, ropensci — within Analytics. sofa is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is hoardr better than sofa?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. sofa is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. 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 sofa?
Top sofa alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "sofa alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/sofa for the full list with editorial commentary on each.