rjd3highfreq
rjd3highfreq ships whatever the Java side ships, and only occasionally says what that was.
Comparison · Analytics
n1qn1c vs spmodel
A side-by-side editorial comparison of n1qn1c and spmodel — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
n1qn1c vs spmodel: at a glance
What is n1qn1c?
A Fortran-descended optimizer got thread-safe, then found two flags that never worked.
n1qn1c is a quasi-Newton optimization routine translated from Fortran to C, used as a solver backend by the nlmixr2 modeling stack rather than called directly by most users. Its two 2026 releases are a concentrated safety pass: global state converted to thread_local, static removed from local variables in the translated code, integer overflow guards added, and memory leaks closed in the R callback wrappers — plus the gcc-asan and valgrind fixes CRAN asked for.
What is spmodel?
Spatial regression in R, adding block kriging and then tuning the numerics underneath it
spmodel fits spatial linear and generalised linear models, for both point-referenced and areal data, with prediction and diagnostics attached. Block prediction arrived in 0.11.0 and the releases since have refined it. The most recent release changes optimiser behaviour: the default Nelder-Mead relative stopping tolerance tightens from 1e-4 to 1e-6 to reduce convergence on local rather than global maxima.
n1qn1c vs spmodel: editorial side-by-side
n1qn1c
0.0ANALYTICS
A Fortran-descended optimizer got thread-safe, then found two flags that never worked.
◆ Current state
n1qn1c is a quasi-Newton optimization routine translated from Fortran to C, used as a solver backend by the nlmixr2 modeling stack rather than called directly by most users. Its two 2026 releases are a concentrated safety pass: global state converted to thread_local, static removed from local variables in the translated code, integer overflow guards added, and memory leaks closed in the R callback wrappers — plus the gcc-asan and valgrind fixes CRAN asked for.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is being hardened for use inside a parallel modeling framework rather than extended. The audit that produced the thread-safety work also surfaced two plain bugs in features users would have assumed worked: restart = TRUE left the mode at 2 instead of 3 because of a typo, and assign = TRUE referenced the wrong field name so the compressed Hessian was never written to the supplied environment. Earlier work points the same direction — the 6.0.1-12 function-pointer interface exists so nlmixr2est does not need resubmission when this package changes.
◆ Prediction
Expect further memory-safety and sanitizer work rather than algorithmic change; a Fortran-translated numerical core under CRAN's checking regime generates that kind of release indefinitely.
spmodel
0.0ANALYTICS
Spatial regression in R, adding block kriging and then tuning the numerics underneath it
◆ Current state
spmodel fits spatial linear and generalised linear models, for both point-referenced and areal data, with prediction and diagnostics attached. Block prediction arrived in 0.11.0 and the releases since have refined it. The most recent release changes optimiser behaviour: the default Nelder-Mead relative stopping tolerance tightens from 1e-4 to 1e-6 to reduce convergence on local rather than global maxima.
◆ Where it's heading
Two threads run in parallel. The first is expanding what can be predicted — point predictions, then areal averages over a region via block kriging, then better accuracy and efficiency for that path as the block size default moved from 1000 to 4000 in 0.12.0. The second is numerical trustworthiness, and it is unusually prominent here: a range-constraint option for stability in 0.9.0, a corrected log determinant of the fixed effects in the restricted log likelihood in 0.11.0, a cloud semivariogram that had been doubling the semivariance fixed in 0.11.1, and now a tighter optimiser tolerance. Several of these silently changed results before they were caught.
◆ Prediction
Expect the maintainers to keep publishing explicit reproduction instructions alongside numerical default changes, as 0.13.0 does by documenting the `control = list(reltol = 1e-4)` escape hatch. The entries give no signal of expansion beyond the current model families.
Alternatives to n1qn1c and spmodel
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 n1qn1c or spmodel.
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affiner
affiner is quietly turning a grid transformation helper into a small computational geometry library.
ageproR
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r-ledger
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gridpattern
gridpattern keeps widening its catalogue, and the newest patterns finally use the device's own line rendering.
See all n1qn1c alternatives → · See all spmodel alternatives →
Recent activity from n1qn1c and spmodel
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2mo agospmodelTighter optimiser tolerance to avoid local maxima
- 4mo agon1qn1crestart and assign flags fixed; sanitizer issues cleared
- 4mo agon1qn1cGlobal state converted to thread_local
- 6mo agospmodelEmpirical autocovariance function and better block kriging accuracy
- 9mo agospmodelCloud semivariogram doubling fixed; geometry warnings added
- 1y agospmodelBlock kriging for areal averages and their uncertainty ⚡
- 1y agospmodelRobust semivariogram and new covariance types for areal models
- 1y agospmodelRange constraint option and redefined covariance type names
- 1y agon1qn1cFunction-pointer API decouples nlmixr2est releases
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between n1qn1c and spmodel?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. n1qn1c and spmodel 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 n1qn1c better than spmodel?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. n1qn1c and spmodel 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 n1qn1c?
Top n1qn1c alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "n1qn1c alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/n1qn1c for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to spmodel?
Top spmodel alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "spmodel alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/spmodel for the full list with editorial commentary on each.