STACAS
Single-cell batch correction that learned to use cell labels, then spent three releases chasing Seurat.
A side-by-side editorial comparison of questionr and TidyDensity — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
| Feature | questionr | TidyDensity |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Analytics | Analytics |
| Velocity score | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Sparks · 30d | 0 | 0 |
| Top themes | survey analysis, contingency tables, rstudio addins, tidyverse compatibility | statistical-distributions, random-generation, parameter-estimation, tidyverse |
| Last editorial update | 2h ago | 57m ago |
| Website | Visit → | Visit → |
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.
A distribution catalogue that grows by one family at a time, and rarely breaks anything.
TidyDensity generates tidy-format random data from statistical distributions, with parameter estimation, AIC calculation, summary tables and automatic plotting for each one. Its releases follow a fixed template — breaking changes, new features, minor fixes — and the breaking section is usually empty. Growth comes distribution by distribution: Bernoulli, Burr, triangular, chi-square, zero-truncated negative binomial and others each arrive with a matching set of param_estimate, aic and stats_tbl helpers.
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.
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.
Expect the next release to be another R-devel or tidyverse compatibility fix; nothing in the entries points to new functionality.
TidyDensity generates tidy-format random data from statistical distributions, with parameter estimation, AIC calculation, summary tables and automatic plotting for each one. Its releases follow a fixed template — breaking changes, new features, minor fixes — and the breaking section is usually empty. Growth comes distribution by distribution: Bernoulli, Burr, triangular, chi-square, zero-truncated negative binomial and others each arrive with a matching set of param_estimate, aic and stats_tbl helpers.
The package is filling out a matrix rather than changing shape — every new distribution gets the same four or five companion functions, so the surface grows predictably and the design does not. What variation exists comes from utilities that work across distributions: MCMC sampling, bootstrap helpers, time series conversion, distribution comparison. The two genuine breaking changes in this window were both internal reworks, moving generation onto data.table and rewriting quantile normalization for speed.
The established pattern of adding a distribution with its full helper set is the most likely continuation. Recent releases have been small, suggesting the catalogue is approaching the distributions its author considers worth covering.
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 TidyDensity.
Single-cell batch correction that learned to use cell labels, then spent three releases chasing Seurat.
A debugger for ggplot2's internals, hardening its grip as the internals it traces keep moving.
A univariate density estimator that added zero-inflated data and reopened its C++ API to do it.
Stationary vine copulas for time series, released in lockstep with the rest of Nagler's vine stack.
A single-purpose ggplot2 extension that has spent six years tracking ggplot2 instead of growing.
A Star Trek data package that became a Memory Alpha web client and has been patching scrapers ever since.
See all questionr alternatives → · See all TidyDensity alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. questionr and TidyDensity 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.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. questionr and TidyDensity 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.
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.
Top TidyDensity alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "TidyDensity alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tidydensity for the full list with editorial commentary on each.