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Comparison · Analytics
sftime vs waywiser
A side-by-side editorial comparison of sftime and waywiser — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
sftime vs waywiser: at a glance
What is sftime?
The spatiotemporal companion to sf, moving at the pace of the packages around it.
sftime extends sf with an active time column, giving R a data frame class for data that is both spatial and temporal. Its recent history is almost entirely integration work: 0.3.0 added conversion methods from spatstat point patterns, sftrack and sftraj movement objects and cubble data frames, plus dedicated tidyr::drop_na() and dplyr::dplyr_reconstruct() methods. The two releases since are a namespace version-check correction and a switch from the magrittr pipe to the native pipe in examples.
What is waywiser?
Spatial model assessment that spent the last year on cross-platform arithmetic and CRAN rules.
waywiser provides spatial model assessment metrics in a tidymodels idiom — spatial autocorrelation measures, area of applicability, and multi-scale assessment of predictions. The substantive work landed in 0.3.0 through 0.5.0, and the recent releases are consolidation: 0.6.0 made metric functions return NA everywhere they previously returned NaN, because macOS disagreed with every other platform, and taught ww_multi_scale() to handle classification and class probability metrics correctly when given rasters. The three releases since are entirely CRAN policy compliance — no internet downloads during checks, no writing to directories, no syntax that would raise the R version floor.
sftime vs waywiser: editorial side-by-side
sftime
0.0ANALYTICS
The spatiotemporal companion to sf, moving at the pace of the packages around it.
◆ Current state
sftime extends sf with an active time column, giving R a data frame class for data that is both spatial and temporal. Its recent history is almost entirely integration work: 0.3.0 added conversion methods from spatstat point patterns, sftrack and sftraj movement objects and cubble data frames, plus dedicated tidyr::drop_na() and dplyr::dplyr_reconstruct() methods. The two releases since are a namespace version-check correction and a switch from the magrittr pipe to the native pipe in examples.
◆ Where it's heading
The package's job is to be interoperable, so its releases follow whatever the surrounding spatial and tidyverse packages do. The dplyr_reconstruct() work is the clearest example of why that matters: inheriting sf's method caused column binding to silently return an sf object where an sftime object was expected, which is the kind of class-preservation bug that only surfaces two steps downstream. Development is sparse, roughly one release a year.
◆ Prediction
Expect further conversion methods as new spatiotemporal classes appear in the R spatial ecosystem, and continued tracking of dplyr and tidyr generics. The entries do not indicate any planned change to the sftime class itself.
waywiser
0.0ANALYTICS
Spatial model assessment that spent the last year on cross-platform arithmetic and CRAN rules.
◆ Current state
waywiser provides spatial model assessment metrics in a tidymodels idiom — spatial autocorrelation measures, area of applicability, and multi-scale assessment of predictions. The substantive work landed in 0.3.0 through 0.5.0, and the recent releases are consolidation: 0.6.0 made metric functions return NA everywhere they previously returned NaN, because macOS disagreed with every other platform, and taught ww_multi_scale() to handle classification and class probability metrics correctly when given rasters. The three releases since are entirely CRAN policy compliance — no internet downloads during checks, no writing to directories, no syntax that would raise the R version floor.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has reached the point where the interesting bugs are cross-platform and cross-package rather than statistical. Its main function, ww_multi_scale(), has been the focus of nearly every release since 0.4.0, working through units handling, aggregation ordering, raster inputs and metric-type dispatch. The dependency on vip and the tidymodels metric machinery means a share of releases exist only to track breaking changes elsewhere.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next substantive release to continue on ww_multi_scale() edge cases, given that it has absorbed most of the fixes in this window. The recent run of CRAN-compliance patches suggests no feature work is currently in flight.
Alternatives to sftime and waywiser
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 sftime or waywiser.
maplegend
The legend engine mapsf spun out, now covering legend types the parent map package can draw.
lang
R help pages translated on demand by whichever LLM you point it at.
mapsf
Thematic mapping in base R that finally got a theming system, then spent two years polishing legends.
qualtRics
qualtRics moved its contact functions onto XM Directory days before the old endpoints died.
fabletools
The tidyverts forecasting core rebuilt model combination on full residual covariance.
See all sftime alternatives → · See all waywiser alternatives →
Recent activity from sftime and waywiser
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3mo agosftimeExamples switched to the native R pipe
- 11mo agosftimeFixes the cubble namespace version check
- 1y agowaywiserStops downloading data during CRAN checks
- 1y agowaywiserVignettes no longer write to CRAN directories
- 1y agowaywiserKeeps the R version floor below 4.1
- 1y agosftimeConverts from spatstat, sftrack and cubble objects
- 2y agowaywiserNaN results become NA; raster metrics dispatch correctly
- 2y agowaywiserGuards against ignored grid arguments; faster on sf data
- 2y agowaywiserFixes wrong observation counts and ignored grid units
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between sftime and waywiser?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. sftime and waywiser 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 sftime better than waywiser?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. sftime and waywiser 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 sftime?
Top sftime alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "sftime alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/sftime for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to waywiser?
Top waywiser alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "waywiser alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/waywiser for the full list with editorial commentary on each.