RMVMR
RMVMR is being tidied in lockstep with MVMR, the package it wraps
Comparison · Analytics
monitOS vs units
A side-by-side editorial comparison of monitOS and units — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
monitOS vs units: at a glance
What is monitOS?
monitOS relicenses to MIT, the clearest signal in a sparse Novartis release feed.
monitOS is Novartis's R package for monitoring overall survival in clinical trials, with an accompanying Shiny app. The 0.1.6 release changes the licence to MIT, fixes a shiny import problem and an infinite-value bug in the app, and adds spell checking plus issue-tracker and website links. The prior release carries no notes at all beyond a link to the commit history.
What is units?
units reaches 1.0 by rewriting its parser and accepting the breakage that comes with it.
units attaches physical units to R vectors on top of the udunits2 library, covering arithmetic, conversion and ggplot2 scales. Version 1.0-0 replaced the unit-expression tokenizer so numbers are consistently treated as prefixes, and expressions like ml/min/1.73m^2 now parse the way physiologists write them. Printing follows NIST conventions, and 1.0-1 is a fix pass over memory handling and parser edge cases.
monitOS vs units: editorial side-by-side
monitOS
0.0ANALYTICS
monitOS relicenses to MIT, the clearest signal in a sparse Novartis release feed.
◆ Current state
monitOS is Novartis's R package for monitoring overall survival in clinical trials, with an accompanying Shiny app. The 0.1.6 release changes the licence to MIT, fixes a shiny import problem and an infinite-value bug in the app, and adds spell checking plus issue-tracker and website links. The prior release carries no notes at all beyond a link to the commit history.
◆ Where it's heading
For a package published by a pharmaceutical sponsor, the licence change is the substantive item — MIT removes friction for reuse outside Novartis, and the added issue link and website point the same way, toward outside users. Everything else is packaging hygiene. At 0.1.6 with two releases nine months apart, the statistical methodology looks settled while the distribution around it is being tidied.
◆ Prediction
The open-sourcing signals suggest the next release will respond to outside issue reports; the entries give no indication of methodology changes.
units
0.0ANALYTICS
units reaches 1.0 by rewriting its parser and accepting the breakage that comes with it.
◆ Current state
units attaches physical units to R vectors on top of the udunits2 library, covering arithmetic, conversion and ggplot2 scales. Version 1.0-0 replaced the unit-expression tokenizer so numbers are consistently treated as prefixes, and expressions like ml/min/1.73m^2 now parse the way physiologists write them. Printing follows NIST conventions, and 1.0-1 is a fix pass over memory handling and parser edge cases.
◆ Where it's heading
The long 0.8-x run was accretion — ggplot2 scales absorbed from ggforce, ud_convert(), matrix methods, steady performance work — while known parsing defects stayed in place. The 1.0 release finally traded backwards compatibility for correct parsing, and 1.0-1's pointer-wrapping and exception-propagation work suggests the C++ glue is being hardened behind it. Fixes cluster at the udunits2 boundary, which remains the main source of surprises.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued patch releases against udunits2 quirks and the new tokenizer's fallout rather than new surface area, with the ggplot2 integration and conversion helpers already in place.
Alternatives to monitOS and units
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 monitOS or units.
geoarrow-r
geoarrow tracks the GeoArrow spec and otherwise just keeps compiling
n2khab
n2khab keeps retracting interpretations of habitat data it can't actually support
tidypolars
tidypolars is grinding toward complete dplyr coverage, one supported function at a time
OneSampleMR
OneSampleMR found that argument order in a formula was silently changing its estimates
bpbounds
bpbounds found the same swapped-cell bug twice and clamped its bounds back into range
See all monitOS alternatives → · See all units alternatives →
Recent activity from monitOS and units
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 5mo agounitsMemory-leak and udunits2 parsing fixes after 1.0
- 10mo agounitsNew tokenizer parses compound units correctly ⚡
- 1y agomonitOSRelicensed to MIT; Shiny import and inf-value fixes
- 1y agounitsCopy semantics fix in ud_convert(); C++17 for old R
- 1y agounitscbind/rbind methods, ud_convert() and broad fixes
- 1y agounitsSilences a CRAN compiler warning
- 1y agomonitOSv0.1.5-release
- 2y agounitsRestores simplify=FALSE for identical units
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between monitOS and units?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. monitOS and units 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 monitOS better than units?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. monitOS and units 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 monitOS?
Top monitOS alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "monitOS alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/monitos for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to units?
Top units alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "units alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/units-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.