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Comparison · Analytics
mutagen vs tidyBdE
A side-by-side editorial comparison of mutagen and tidyBdE — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
mutagen vs tidyBdE: at a glance
What is mutagen?
A young package porting Stata's egen row-wise helpers to the tidyverse, one function per release
mutagen provides row-wise column-generation helpers for R data frames in the spirit of Stata's egen — gen_rowmean(), gen_rowsum(), gen_rowsd(), gen_rownonmiss() and about a dozen siblings. It reached 0.5.0 within three months of its first release, adding two or three functions each time. The most recent release adds gen_coldiff() and renames two functions to fit the naming scheme.
What is tidyBdE?
A Banco de España CSV scraper just learned to query the bank's live statistics API.
tidyBdE pulls Banco de España macroeconomic series into tidy R data frames and ships ggplot2 scales in the bank's house colors. Its whole history ran on bulk CSV downloads; 0.7.0 adds bde_series_api_latest() and bde_series_api_load() to query the bank's Statistics web service directly, with wide and long output, metadata extraction and time-range validation. The same release reached 100% line coverage.
mutagen vs tidyBdE: editorial side-by-side
mutagen
0.0ANALYTICS
A young package porting Stata's egen row-wise helpers to the tidyverse, one function per release
◆ Current state
mutagen provides row-wise column-generation helpers for R data frames in the spirit of Stata's egen — gen_rowmean(), gen_rowsum(), gen_rowsd(), gen_rownonmiss() and about a dozen siblings. It reached 0.5.0 within three months of its first release, adding two or three functions each time. The most recent release adds gen_coldiff() and renames two functions to fit the naming scheme.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is filling out a known surface rather than discovering one: the reference implementation exists in Stata, so development is a matter of working through the list. Alongside that, the naming convention is still settling — gen_rowmatch became gen_rowany, gen_percent became gen_colpercent, gen_na_listcol became gen_listcol_na — which is normal for a pre-1.0 package but means callers should expect further renames. Contributions are arriving from several first-time contributors.
◆ Prediction
The gen_col* prefix has only two members against a dozen gen_row* functions, so column-wise coverage is the obvious gap; expect it to fill before the naming stabilises for a 1.0.
tidyBdE
0.0ANALYTICS
A Banco de España CSV scraper just learned to query the bank's live statistics API.
◆ Current state
tidyBdE pulls Banco de España macroeconomic series into tidy R data frames and ships ggplot2 scales in the bank's house colors. Its whole history ran on bulk CSV downloads; 0.7.0 adds bde_series_api_latest() and bde_series_api_load() to query the bank's Statistics web service directly, with wide and long output, metadata extraction and time-range validation. The same release reached 100% line coverage.
◆ Where it's heading
Most releases in this feed are the package chasing Banco de España's own churn — series identifiers change upstream and the indicator wrappers get repointed. The API functions break that pattern by removing the bulk-file dependency for the first time, and the new csv_manual vignette reads like documentation of the legacy path rather than the preferred one. The maintainer is applying the same cli, roxygen2 and AI-assisted refactor pass seen across their other Spanish open-data packages.
◆ Prediction
Expect the indicator wrappers to migrate onto the API functions, which would end the recurring identifier-tracking releases; the bde_ind_db documentation already carries the API series code alongside the CSV identifiers.
Alternatives to mutagen and tidyBdE
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 mutagen or tidyBdE.
parallelDist
parallelDist is in pure preservation mode — one build fix every few years.
cairo
Cairo finally catches R's graphics engine, all the way to GE API 16.
rjdqa
rjdqa keeps refining one screen: the seasonal adjustment quality dashboard
epikit
epikit narrows to field-epidemiology helpers, handing proportions to a sibling package
SimInf
SimInf 10.0 turns an epidemic simulator into a tool that fits models to real time series
See all mutagen alternatives → · See all tidyBdE alternatives →
Recent activity from mutagen and tidyBdE
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agotidyBdELive Statistics API access replaces bulk CSV as the entry point ⚡
- 2mo agotidyBdECSV encoding now detected automatically
- 4mo agotidyBdEVignettes migrate to Quarto; CPI series repointed
- 7mo agotidyBdER 4.1 minimum and a documentation pass
- 8mo agomutagengen_coldiff() added; two functions renamed for consistency
- 9mo agomutagengen_rowsum() and gen_rowsd() added
- 9mo agomutagengen_rownonmiss() and gen_rowall() added
- 9mo agomutagenRow mean, median and missingness helpers; gen_rowmatch renamed
- 11mo agomutagenFirst release with the row-wise gen_* family
- 1y agotidyBdEIndicators move onto a single series database
- 1y agotidyBdEQuarterly GDP indicator repointed after upstream change
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between mutagen and tidyBdE?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. mutagen and tidyBdE 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 mutagen better than tidyBdE?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. mutagen and tidyBdE 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 mutagen?
Top mutagen alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "mutagen alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mutagen-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to tidyBdE?
Top tidyBdE alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "tidyBdE alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tidybde for the full list with editorial commentary on each.