randomwalk
randomwalk spent every release getting an R simulation to run in the browser, not on a server.
Comparison · Analytics
questionr vs robma
A side-by-side editorial comparison of questionr and robma — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
questionr vs robma: at a glance
What is questionr?
questionr's survey helpers are finished; recent releases only keep pace with R-devel.
A long-running toolkit for survey data in R — proportion tables, weighted counts, and the interactive irec(), iorder() and icut() addins for recoding. The last functional release was 0.8.0 in March 2025: a new freqtable() function, prop(), cprop() and rprop() extended to tables of three or more dimensions, and the addins moved onto the native pipe and forcats' current API. Both releases since exist purely to fix tests broken by R-devel changes to table internals.
What is robma?
RoBMA 4.0 tears out its own constructor surface and rebuilds on one class hierarchy
RoBMA fits robust Bayesian model-averaged meta-analyses that adjust for publication bias. The 3.x line grew by accretion: separate constructors for each model family (RoBMA.reg, NoBMA, BiBMA and their .reg variants), a spike-and-slab algorithm in 3.3.0 that made estimation fast enough to matter, then a steady stream of post-estimation tooling gated on that algorithm — heterogeneity summaries, residuals, funnel plots, z-curve conversion, predict, extract, pooled and adjusted effects. Version 4.0.0 in May 2026 collapses all of it into a unified brma class hierarchy.
questionr vs robma: editorial side-by-side
questionr
0.0ANALYTICS
questionr's survey helpers are finished; recent releases only keep pace with R-devel.
◆ Current state
A long-running toolkit for survey data in R — proportion tables, weighted counts, and the interactive irec(), iorder() and icut() addins for recoding. The last functional release was 0.8.0 in March 2025: a new freqtable() function, prop(), cprop() and rprop() extended to tables of three or more dimensions, and the addins moved onto the native pipe and forcats' current API. Both releases since exist purely to fix tests broken by R-devel changes to table internals.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a stable package in compatibility-maintenance mode, where the release trigger is upstream churn rather than user demand. The functional work that does appear follows a consistent line — generalising the table functions beyond two dimensions, and keeping the interactive recoding addins aligned with current tidyverse idioms rather than the deprecated ones they were written against. The same maintainer's rainette shipped its own upstream-compatibility fix in the same window.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next release to be another R-devel or tidyverse compatibility fix; nothing in the entries points to new functionality.
robma
0.0ANALYTICS
RoBMA 4.0 tears out its own constructor surface and rebuilds on one class hierarchy
◆ Current state
RoBMA fits robust Bayesian model-averaged meta-analyses that adjust for publication bias. The 3.x line grew by accretion: separate constructors for each model family (RoBMA.reg, NoBMA, BiBMA and their .reg variants), a spike-and-slab algorithm in 3.3.0 that made estimation fast enough to matter, then a steady stream of post-estimation tooling gated on that algorithm — heterogeneity summaries, residuals, funnel plots, z-curve conversion, predict, extract, pooled and adjusted effects. Version 4.0.0 in May 2026 collapses all of it into a unified brma class hierarchy.
◆ Where it's heading
The 3.x series solved the modeling problem and left an interface problem behind: a caller had to know which of six constructors matched their data type, and argument names differed across them. 4.0.0 resolves that by making the model family a set of arguments rather than a function name, and by standardizing input naming on metafor-style conventions. It shipped one day after BayesTools 0.3.0, the author's own upstream infrastructure package, whose new standardization and prior-transformation machinery this rewrite depends on.
◆ Prediction
A rewrite this wide usually needs a follow-up, so expect 4.0.x patches addressing migration gaps as users hit the removed constructors and renamed arguments.
Alternatives to questionr and robma
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 questionr or robma.
fastml
fastml added survival modelling and leakage-proof resampling, moving past classification and regression.
abclass
abclass built out angle-based classifiers in 2022, then went quiet except for CRAN upkeep.
churon
churon is spending its entire release history getting a Rust ONNX binding through CRAN.
firatheme
firatheme woke up after four years and started fixing what ggplot2 changed underneath it.
bagyo
bagyo reached CRAN as a Philippine tropical cyclone dataset, with its tags stamped out of order.
See all questionr alternatives → · See all robma alternatives →
Recent activity from questionr and robma
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3mo agorobmaUnifies six model constructors into one brma class hierarchy ⚡
- 6mo agoquestionrR-devel test fix for NA naming in tables
- 8mo agorobmaRoBMA 3.6.1
- 11mo agorobmaRoBMA 3.6.0
- 1y agorobmaRoBMA 3.5.1
- 1y agorobmaRoBMA 3.5.0
- 1y agoquestionrR-devel test fix for table subset classes
- 1y agoquestionrfreqtable added; proportion tables handle three or more dimensions
- 1y agorobmaRoBMA 3.4.0
- 3y agoquestionrAddins handle non-syntactic variable names
- 4y agoquestionrforcats errors on numeric variables fixed
- 4y agoquestionricut default changed; rp2018 dataset replaces rp99
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between questionr and robma?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. questionr and robma 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 questionr better than robma?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. questionr and robma 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 questionr?
Top questionr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "questionr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/questionr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to robma?
Top robma alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "robma alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/robma for the full list with editorial commentary on each.