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Comparison · Analytics
qtl vs wasserportal
A side-by-side editorial comparison of qtl and wasserportal — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
qtl vs wasserportal: at a glance
What is qtl?
R/qtl is in pure custodial mode: every recent release answers a compiler, not a user
R/qtl is the long-established R package for QTL mapping in experimental crosses, covering interval mapping, composite interval mapping, multiple-QTL model fitting and the associated cross data formats. Nothing in the recent release history adds capability. Version 1.74 removes an include that started warning on CRAN, 1.72 improves an error message in cim(), and 1.70 migrates the C code from Calloc/Realloc/Free to their R_-prefixed equivalents for R-devel.
What is wasserportal?
A Berlin groundwater scraper grew a full IoT publishing pipeline in two days.
wasserportal scrapes groundwater and surface water monitoring data from Wasserportal Berlin — station metadata, water levels, quality series. For its first four years that was the whole product, with releases tracking the portal's own churn: a new API version in 2023, new three-letter variable codes, and a 2026 fix decoding pages as windows-1252 because the server declares UTF-8 but emits Latin-1. In June 2026 it added a ThingsBoard integration, then extended it to self-hosted instances two days later.
qtl vs wasserportal: editorial side-by-side
qtl
0.0ANALYTICS
R/qtl is in pure custodial mode: every recent release answers a compiler, not a user
◆ Current state
R/qtl is the long-established R package for QTL mapping in experimental crosses, covering interval mapping, composite interval mapping, multiple-QTL model fitting and the associated cross data formats. Nothing in the recent release history adds capability. Version 1.74 removes an include that started warning on CRAN, 1.72 improves an error message in cim(), and 1.70 migrates the C code from Calloc/Realloc/Free to their R_-prefixed equivalents for R-devel.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is being maintained, not developed. The work divides cleanly into keeping the compiled code building against successive R and toolchain versions, and fixing narrow bugs reported through the issue tracker. The C-level migrations in particular are compliance with R's tightening of its C interface rather than anything chosen. Users should read the stability as maturity: the analysis surface has been fixed for years and the maintainer is keeping it installable.
◆ Prediction
R has continued to restrict its non-API C entry points, and this package has already made two such migrations, so further compile-time compliance work is the most likely content of the next release.
wasserportal
0.0ANALYTICS
A Berlin groundwater scraper grew a full IoT publishing pipeline in two days.
◆ Current state
wasserportal scrapes groundwater and surface water monitoring data from Wasserportal Berlin — station metadata, water levels, quality series. For its first four years that was the whole product, with releases tracking the portal's own churn: a new API version in 2023, new three-letter variable codes, and a 2026 fix decoding pages as windows-1252 because the server declares UTF-8 but emits Latin-1. In June 2026 it added a ThingsBoard integration, then extended it to self-hosted instances two days later.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is repositioning from a data-access library into the first half of a monitoring pipeline. 0.6.0 shipped push helpers, device discovery and cleanup, an importable dashboard and a GitHub Actions workflow; 0.7.0 immediately generalised the authentication so it works against self-hosted Community Edition rather than only the Cloud tier, and lifted the push from a five-station demo to the entire groundwater archive. The hardening detail in 0.7.0 — retries on 5xx, warnings when only one of two credentials is set — reads like a maintainer who has run this against a real deployment.
◆ Prediction
The obvious next step is extending the ThingsBoard path to the surface water stations, which the package has flagged as under-supported since 0.1.0. The entries show no other direction under construction.
Alternatives to qtl and wasserportal
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 qtl or wasserportal.
grex
grex is a lookup table with a version number — it ships when the annotation moves.
protr
protr's feature set is finished; the work now is surviving Bioconductor's churn.
seriation
seriation stopped shipping algorithms and started shipping a way to pick between them.
arulesViz
arulesViz finished its move to ggplot2 and has been coasting on maintenance since.
EvoPhylo
EvoPhylo added BEAST2 alongside MrBayes, then went quiet for two years.
See all qtl alternatives → · See all wasserportal alternatives →
Recent activity from qtl and wasserportal
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agowasserportalSelf-hosted ThingsBoard support via JWT login
- 1mo agowasserportalThingsBoard integration turns the scraper into a pipeline ⚡
- 3mo agowasserportalwindows-1252 decoding fixes umlaut handling on Windows
- 8mo agoqtlRemove R_ext/PrtUtil.h include flagged by CRAN
- 8mo agoqtlClearer cim() error when multiple phenotypes are passed
- 1y agoqtlC memory calls migrated to R_Calloc/R_Realloc/R_Free
- 2y agoqtlFix Rprintf call and remaining compiler warnings
- 2y agoqtlFix summary.scanone() thresholds and csvs phenotype reading
- 3y agoqtlFix addint()/addcovarint() with X chromosome QTL and missing phenotypes
- 3y agowasserportalExport and import functions for scraped datasets
- 3y agowasserportalAdapted to Wasserportal's new API version
- 4y agowasserportalTemperature parameter naming corrected
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between qtl and wasserportal?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. qtl and wasserportal 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 qtl better than wasserportal?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. qtl and wasserportal 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 qtl?
Top qtl alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "qtl alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/qtl-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to wasserportal?
Top wasserportal alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "wasserportal alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/wasserportal for the full list with editorial commentary on each.