tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Comparison · Analytics
rlistings vs tern
A side-by-side editorial comparison of rlistings and tern — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:clinical-trialsr-packagepharmaverse
rlistings vs tern: at a glance
What is rlistings?
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
rlistings renders clinical-trial subject listings and paginates them for regulatory output, sitting alongside rtables on the shared formatters engine. The releases in this window are dominated by pagination correctness: repeated key columns across pages, splitting by a variable, ordered-factor handling, column gaps, and font metrics. Development is a large rotating contributor set inside the insightsengineering organisation.
What is tern?
tern is migrating its entire analysis-function catalogue off make_afun(), one release at a time.
tern builds the clinical-trial tables, listings, and graphs layer on top of rtables — occurrence counts, survival summaries, ANCOVA, incidence rates, subgroup and biomarker tabulations. The visible work across the window is a systematic refactor: dozens of analysis functions rewritten to drop make_afun() and adopt a common analysis-function style driven by rtables' additional_fun_params. Feature additions ride along with it.
rlistings vs tern: editorial side-by-side
rlistings
0.0ANALYTICS
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
◆ Current state
rlistings renders clinical-trial subject listings and paginates them for regulatory output, sitting alongside rtables on the shared formatters engine. The releases in this window are dominated by pagination correctness: repeated key columns across pages, splitting by a variable, ordered-factor handling, column gaps, and font metrics. Development is a large rotating contributor set inside the insightsengineering organisation.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is progressively delegating pagination to formatters rather than implementing it — paginate_listing() was refactored to call formatters' paginate_to_mpfs() directly, and truetype font support arrived through a new formatters API. That reduces duplicated logic but ties the package's page-break behaviour to a dependency it shares with rtables. Feature work beyond pagination is thin: better error messages for unsupported column classes, a cheatsheet.
◆ Prediction
Expect pagination fidelity to remain the focus, with changes arriving as formatters exposes more of its layout machinery rather than as rlistings-native features.
tern
0.0ANALYTICS
tern is migrating its entire analysis-function catalogue off make_afun(), one release at a time.
◆ Current state
tern builds the clinical-trial tables, listings, and graphs layer on top of rtables — occurrence counts, survival summaries, ANCOVA, incidence rates, subgroup and biomarker tabulations. The visible work across the window is a systematic refactor: dozens of analysis functions rewritten to drop make_afun() and adopt a common analysis-function style driven by rtables' additional_fun_params. Feature additions ride along with it.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a multi-release architectural migration, not incremental polish. Each release converts another batch of functions, and the count is large — roughly two dozen in the most recent entry alone, after a comparable batch the release before. Alongside it, the denom parameter is being threaded through counting functions and g_lineplot is accumulating layout control, both patterns of standardising arguments that previously varied per function.
◆ Prediction
The refactor should continue until the make_afun() dependency is gone entirely, with the remaining tabulate_* and biomarker functions the likely next batch; the entries give no date for completion.
Alternatives to rlistings and tern
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 rlistings or tern.
Tplyr
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
hoardr
A cache-directory helper that has shipped nothing but CRAN-triggered patches for seven years.
gigs
gigs redesigned its whole conversion API for rOpenSci, then spent three releases getting the docs to build.
riem
A weather-data client that keeps rewriting its HTTP layer while slowly tightening its API.
datasetjson
datasetjson rebuilt its object model to track the CDISC Dataset-JSON 1.1 schema.
See all rlistings alternatives → · See all tern alternatives →
Recent activity from rlistings and tern
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1y agoternTwo dozen more analysis functions drop make_afun() ⚡
- 1y agoterndenom threading, custom statistics, and compare_vars merged in
- 1y agorlistingsError and message handling for difftime and zero-row listings
- 1y agorlistingsTrueType font support and col_gap in pagination
- 1y agoternRisk-difference columns for subgroup tables
- 2y agoterng_lineplot gains faceting and axis controls
- 2y agorlistingssplit_into_pages_by_var() and pagination moved onto formatters
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between rlistings and tern?
Both compete on the same themes — clinical-trials, r-package, pharmaverse — within Analytics. rlistings and tern 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 rlistings better than tern?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. rlistings and tern 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 rlistings?
Top rlistings alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "rlistings alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rlistings for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to tern?
Top tern alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "tern alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tern for the full list with editorial commentary on each.