RSelenium
RSelenium's only release in eight years touched documentation and CI, nothing else.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
Knock vs Rhino
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Knock and Rhino — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Knock vs Rhino: at a glance
| Feature | Knock | Rhino |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Infra & APIs | Infra & APIs |
| Velocity score | 6.3 | 0.0 |
| Sparks · 30d | 1 | 0 |
| Top themes | notification infrastructure, data sources, agent interface, workflow primitives | r-shiny, scaffolding, agent-instructions, release-candidates |
| Last editorial update | 13h ago | 1h ago |
| Website | — | Visit → |
What is Knock?
Knock is pulling every customer-data source into notifications, then putting an agent on top.
Knock is a notification infrastructure layer, and the last two months have gone into two things: widening what can trigger a workflow, and making the resulting data legible. Amplitude and Clay both landed as first-class data sources, so product events, cohort changes and enriched CRM rows now drive messaging directly rather than through customer-written glue. The workflow engine gained a wait-for-event primitive, and the template editor was rebuilt around block editing.
What is Rhino?
Rhino's release line runs on release candidates, and 1.12 makes room for coding agents.
Rhino publishes only release candidates to this feed — every entry back to 1.9 is an -rc tag, with no final release ever appearing. The 1.12.0 candidate is the first in the window with user-visible substance: a `use` function that scaffolds an AGENTS.md file carrying Rhino-specific instructions, plus a `use` function for the CI template. The rest is maintenance: covr-based test coverage, e2e tests, Node dependency updates, and a maintainer handover.
Knock vs Rhino: editorial side-by-side
Knock
6.3INFRA · APIS
Knock is pulling every customer-data source into notifications, then putting an agent on top.
◆ Current state
Knock is a notification infrastructure layer, and the last two months have gone into two things: widening what can trigger a workflow, and making the resulting data legible. Amplitude and Clay both landed as first-class data sources, so product events, cohort changes and enriched CRM rows now drive messaging directly rather than through customer-written glue. The workflow engine gained a wait-for-event primitive, and the template editor was rebuilt around block editing.
◆ Where it's heading
The shape is a product moving up from delivery mechanics toward the surrounding workflow. Sources reduce the integration code a customer writes before Knock is useful; the agent layer reduces the reporting work after. Category and tag management being pulled into dedicated dashboard pages is the housekeeping that follows: the primitives got numerous enough to need their own administration surface.
◆ Prediction
Expect the data-source list to keep growing along the same lines — warehouse and product-analytics tools that already hold the user state Knock needs — and for the agent to be given more of the dashboard's read surface.
Rhino
0.0INFRA · APIS
Rhino's release line runs on release candidates, and 1.12 makes room for coding agents.
◆ Current state
Rhino publishes only release candidates to this feed — every entry back to 1.9 is an -rc tag, with no final release ever appearing. The 1.12.0 candidate is the first in the window with user-visible substance: a `use` function that scaffolds an AGENTS.md file carrying Rhino-specific instructions, plus a `use` function for the CI template. The rest is maintenance: covr-based test coverage, e2e tests, Node dependency updates, and a maintainer handover.
◆ Where it's heading
Rhino is converging on scaffolding as its main surface — the framework's value is increasingly in what it generates for you rather than what it does at runtime, and 1.12 extends that generation to instructions meant for AI coding agents rather than humans. The maintainer change and the CI/coverage work in the same release read as consolidation after a long gap: 1.11 shipped in April 2025, 1.12 not until June 2026.
◆ Prediction
More `use_*` scaffolding functions are the obvious next increment, since two arrived in a single release. Whether the AGENTS.md instructions grow into deeper agent tooling is not something these entries settle.
Alternatives to Knock and Rhino
Other Infra & APIs 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 Knock or Rhino.
servr
servr keeps growing from a static file server into a general-purpose R web server.
Windmill
Windmill is dismantling the paywall between itself and the data stack
Resend
Resend is wiring itself into every agent runtime it can reach, one standard at a time
vdiffr
vdiffr finished its job in 2021 and has been tracking compilers ever since.
rsconnect
The deployment client is being rebuilt around credentials it never has to store.
Recent activity from Knock and Rhino
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoKnockCategory + tag management
- 7d agoKnockAmplitude data source
- 14d agoKnockAnalytics in the Knock agent ⚡
- 15d agoKnockWait for event function
- 16d agoKnockClay data source
- 21d agoKnockRedesigned template editor
- 2mo agoRhinoRhino 1.12 adds AGENTS.md and CI-template scaffolding
- 1y agoRhinoRhino 1.11.0 release candidate
- 1y agoRhinoRhino 1.10.0 release candidate
- 2y agoRhinoRhino 1.9 adds bslib support and prettier formatting
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Knock and Rhino?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Knock is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 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 Knock better than Rhino?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Knock is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Knock?
Top Knock alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Knock alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/knock for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Rhino?
Top Rhino alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Rhino alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rhino-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.