tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Comparison · Analytics
lime vs Tplyr
A side-by-side editorial comparison of lime and Tplyr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
lime vs Tplyr: at a glance
What is lime?
The R port of LIME has shipped one commit in three years, and it was an xgboost compatibility patch
lime is the R implementation of local interpretable model-agnostic explanations, and it is effectively in preservation rather than development. Its last substantive feature release was 0.5.0 in 2019; 0.5.3 in 2022 recorded a maintainer handover and general upkeep; 0.5.4 in December 2025 exists solely to keep the package working across xgboost versions. Six releases span eight years, and only two of them contain features.
What is Tplyr?
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
Tplyr builds clinical summary tables through a layered grammar — count, descriptive statistics, and shift layers assembled onto a table object. The 1.0.0 release added a traceability metadata framework that lets a user ask which source rows produced any given cell, and later releases extended it to cases the first pass missed. The package is maintained by Atorus within the pharmaverse ecosystem.
lime vs Tplyr: editorial side-by-side
lime
0.0ANALYTICS
The R port of LIME has shipped one commit in three years, and it was an xgboost compatibility patch
◆ Current state
lime is the R implementation of local interpretable model-agnostic explanations, and it is effectively in preservation rather than development. Its last substantive feature release was 0.5.0 in 2019; 0.5.3 in 2022 recorded a maintainer handover and general upkeep; 0.5.4 in December 2025 exists solely to keep the package working across xgboost versions. Six releases span eight years, and only two of them contain features.
◆ Where it's heading
The pattern is upstream-driven survival: every release since 0.5.0 responds to a change in something lime depends on — glmnet's namespace, order() semantics on data frames, xgboost's interface. The one deliberate change in that stretch was moving htmlwidgets, shiny and shinythemes to Suggests, which lightens installation for the majority of users who never open the interactive explainer. Nothing in the feed indicates work on the explanation method itself.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next release, whenever it comes, to be another compatibility patch triggered by a dependency change rather than anything touching how explanations are computed. The three-year gaps make timing unpredictable.
Tplyr
0.0ANALYTICS
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
◆ Current state
Tplyr builds clinical summary tables through a layered grammar — count, descriptive statistics, and shift layers assembled onto a table object. The 1.0.0 release added a traceability metadata framework that lets a user ask which source rows produced any given cell, and later releases extended it to cases the first pass missed. The package is maintained by Atorus within the pharmaverse ecosystem.
◆ Where it's heading
Post-1.0 work has been about completing the metadata story and filling gaps in layer composition rather than adding table types — metadata for missing subjects, add_anti_join(), missing-subject rows, data limiting, and fixes to nested count layers where an inner value appears under several outer groups. Releases cluster tightly after a major version, then go quiet, and the window ends with a patch issued days after the release it corrects.
◆ Prediction
Further releases will most likely continue closing traceability and nested-layer edge cases rather than introducing new layer types, following the pattern of both post-1.0 feature releases.
Alternatives to lime and Tplyr
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 lime or Tplyr.
rlistings
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
hoardr
A cache-directory helper that has shipped nothing but CRAN-triggered patches for seven years.
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 lime and Tplyr
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8mo agolimexgboost compatibility restored across versions
- 2y agoTplyrMissing-subject metadata, add_anti_join(), and nested-layer fixes
- 3y agoTplyrMetadata vignette fix and parenthesis hugging
- 3y agoTplyrDenominator logic fix ahead of CRAN release
- 3y agoTplyrReverse-dependency fix
- 3y agoTplyr1.0.0 introduces the traceability metadata framework ⚡
- 3y agolimeMaintainer handover and general upkeep
- 5y agolimeShiny dependencies moved to Suggests
- 6y agolimeNamespace fix for glmnet changes
- 7y agolimegower_pow added and lambda aligned with the Python implementation
- 8y agolimeh2o support, NA handling, and date columns held during permutation
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between lime and Tplyr?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. lime and Tplyr 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 lime better than Tplyr?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. lime and Tplyr 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 lime?
Top lime alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "lime alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/lime for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Tplyr?
Top Tplyr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Tplyr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tplyr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.