metatools
SDTM supplemental-qualifier merging got sturdier, then the package went quiet for two years.
Comparison · Analytics
marquee vs sivirep
A side-by-side editorial comparison of marquee and sivirep — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
marquee vs sivirep: at a glance
What is marquee?
marquee is filling in the typographic details — outlines, border types, real font metrics for underlines.
marquee renders markdown text onto R graphics devices, and backs element_marquee() and geom_marquee() in ggplot2. Development ran in a tight burst through August and September 2025: 1.1.0 added text outlines, a size shortcut and remote PNG/JPEG support, 1.2.0 added border and outline line types and moved underline placement onto font metrics, and 1.2.1 cleaned up the bugs those introduced.
What is sivirep?
sivirep turned Colombia's SIVIGILA surveillance data into a one-call reporting package.
The 1.0.0 release of December 2024 is the substance of this feed: incidence calculation and plotting for the country, departments and municipalities, ethnicity and case-classification breakdowns, multi-year retrospectives, and a Reporte Evento template that assembles them. It was shaped by usability testing and expert review with Colombia's National Institute of Health. The two patches since are fixes, warnings and documentation.
marquee vs sivirep: editorial side-by-side
marquee
0.0ANALYTICS
marquee is filling in the typographic details — outlines, border types, real font metrics for underlines.
◆ Current state
marquee renders markdown text onto R graphics devices, and backs element_marquee() and geom_marquee() in ggplot2. Development ran in a tight burst through August and September 2025: 1.1.0 added text outlines, a size shortcut and remote PNG/JPEG support, 1.2.0 added border and outline line types and moved underline placement onto font metrics, and 1.2.1 cleaned up the bugs those introduced.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is converging on typographic fidelity rather than new capability. Early work settled layout semantics — CSS margin collapsing, inline padding reserving space during shaping, devices without glyph support — and recent releases refine how decorations are drawn and measured. The naming cleanup in 1.2.0, border_size becoming border_width, reads as an API being tidied ahead of wider use rather than one still being explored.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued small releases sanding down rendering edge cases in ggplot2 contexts, since that is where the recent bug reports come from; nothing here signals a new feature area.
sivirep
0.0ANALYTICS
sivirep turned Colombia's SIVIGILA surveillance data into a one-call reporting package.
◆ Current state
The 1.0.0 release of December 2024 is the substance of this feed: incidence calculation and plotting for the country, departments and municipalities, ethnicity and case-classification breakdowns, multi-year retrospectives, and a Reporte Evento template that assembles them. It was shaped by usability testing and expert review with Colombia's National Institute of Health. The two patches since are fixes, warnings and documentation.
◆ Where it's heading
Work after 1.0.0 has gone into making the report template survive bad input rather than adding analyses — warnings when a municipality or department has no data, handlers that surface import and geo-filter errors during rendering, and an explicit note that first use of any import function needs an internet connection. English-language articles were added alongside the Spanish function interface.
◆ Prediction
Spanish-named functions paired with new English articles point at a widening audience; more translation of the guides looks likelier than new epidemiological methods.
Alternatives to marquee and sivirep
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 marquee or sivirep.
logrx
A clinical-script logger that stopped shipping after its 0.2 line, changelogs made of merged PRs.
lobstr
R's object inspector is losing its view of the internals as CRAN closes off the private C API.
GSODR
A weather-station data client that broke one return type to hand back distances instead of bare IDs.
giscoR
giscoR's 1.0 moved its dataset index into the cache, so new Eurostat releases arrive without a package update.
FedData
FedData has spent two major versions migrating US federal geodata off R's retiring spatial stack.
See all marquee alternatives → · See all sivirep alternatives →
Recent activity from marquee and sivirep
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 11mo agomarqueeBug fixes for relative sizes, outlines and guide width
- 11mo agomarqueeBorder and outline line types; underlines follow font metrics
- 11mo agomarqueeRotated text width fixed; factor input supported
- 0y agomarqueeText outlines, size shortcuts and images from URLs
- 1y agosivirepReport-template error handling and English articles
- 1y agomarquee1.0 settles margin collapsing and inline decoration spacing
- 1y agosivirepLocale tag fix and smaller CRAN examples
- 1y agosivirepIncidence, ethnicity and geographic analysis for SIVIGILA data ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between marquee and sivirep?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. marquee and sivirep 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 marquee better than sivirep?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. marquee and sivirep 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 marquee?
Top marquee alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "marquee alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/marquee for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to sivirep?
Top sivirep alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "sivirep alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/sivirep for the full list with editorial commentary on each.