parallelDist
parallelDist is in pure preservation mode — one build fix every few years.
Comparison · Analytics
mutagen vs TwoSampleMR
A side-by-side editorial comparison of mutagen and TwoSampleMR — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
mutagen vs TwoSampleMR: 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 TwoSampleMR?
The flagship Mendelian randomization package is auditing its own estimators, one bootstrap at a time.
TwoSampleMR is the MRC-IEU package for two-sample Mendelian randomization against OpenGWAS. Its 2026 releases are a sustained correctness review rather than feature work: 0.7.9 fixed bootstrap standard errors in mr_mode() and mr_rucker_bootstrap() that had been inflated since v0.6.30, and repaired two Rucker functions that were returning malformed objects. Point estimates were not affected by the bootstrap bug.
mutagen vs TwoSampleMR: 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.
TwoSampleMR
0.0ANALYTICS
The flagship Mendelian randomization package is auditing its own estimators, one bootstrap at a time.
◆ Current state
TwoSampleMR is the MRC-IEU package for two-sample Mendelian randomization against OpenGWAS. Its 2026 releases are a sustained correctness review rather than feature work: 0.7.9 fixed bootstrap standard errors in mr_mode() and mr_rucker_bootstrap() that had been inflated since v0.6.30, and repaired two Rucker functions that were returning malformed objects. Point estimates were not affected by the bootstrap bug.
◆ Where it's heading
The pattern across these releases is a package being read line by line — a copy-paste weight vector in ldsc_rg(), chunking that produced zero splits for short SNP lists, penalisation recycled across the wrong SNPs, dead code paths removed, and regression tests added behind each fix. Alongside it runs a mechanical modernization pass: seq_len() for loop indices, tidyr in place of reshape2, current ggplot2 idioms, and the OpenGWAS URL migration. Feature work is limited to forest plot presentation.
◆ Prediction
Expect the audit to continue through the remaining bootstrap and jackknife routines, with releases staying in the 0.7.x patch range and each fix arriving with its own regression test.
Alternatives to mutagen and TwoSampleMR
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 TwoSampleMR.
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
broman
A statistician's personal toolbox, growing one plotting utility at a time
See all mutagen alternatives → · See all TwoSampleMR alternatives →
Recent activity from mutagen and TwoSampleMR
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoTwoSampleMRBootstrap standard errors corrected in mode and Rucker estimators
- 2mo agoTwoSampleMRWrong weight vector and chunking fixes across the estimator set
- 2mo agoTwoSampleMRDeprecated ggplot2 idioms and dead code removed
- 3mo agoTwoSampleMROpenGWAS URLs migrated and Wald ratio warnings quieted
- 4mo agoTwoSampleMRCategorized forest plots aligned with the published figures
- 4mo agoTwoSampleMRFurther internal code optimizations
- 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
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between mutagen and TwoSampleMR?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. mutagen and TwoSampleMR 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 TwoSampleMR?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. mutagen and TwoSampleMR 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 TwoSampleMR?
Top TwoSampleMR alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "TwoSampleMR alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/twosamplemr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.