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Comparison · Analytics
socialmixr vs watina
A side-by-side editorial comparison of socialmixr and watina — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
socialmixr vs watina: at a glance
What is socialmixr?
socialmixr breaks its one-shot contact_matrix() call into a composable pipeline.
socialmixr builds age-structured social contact matrices from survey data for infectious-disease modelling. Version 0.6.0 replaces the monolithic contact_matrix() entry point with a chain of composable steps — filter, assign age groups, weigh, compute, then symmetrise, split or convert per capita — behind a new contact_matrix S3 class. Survey downloading is being handed off to a separate contactsurveys package.
What is watina?
A groundwater database client that has started doing the domain analysis too
watina is the R interface to the Watina groundwater monitoring database, and its history is mostly about making data retrieval correct: filter depths guessed conservatively when missing, spatial masking, aggregation methods per observation well, and a long series of fixes to keep the lazy database queries working across dbplyr versions. The most recent release moves past retrieval into interpretation, adding ionic ratio calculation and a Van Wirdum diagram to plot chemistry data.
socialmixr vs watina: editorial side-by-side
socialmixr
0.0ANALYTICS
socialmixr breaks its one-shot contact_matrix() call into a composable pipeline.
◆ Current state
socialmixr builds age-structured social contact matrices from survey data for infectious-disease modelling. Version 0.6.0 replaces the monolithic contact_matrix() entry point with a chain of composable steps — filter, assign age groups, weigh, compute, then symmetrise, split or convert per capita — behind a new contact_matrix S3 class. Survey downloading is being handed off to a separate contactsurveys package.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0 is decomposition: first extracting helpers like assign_age_groups(), then moving downloads out of the package, and now exposing every stage of matrix construction as its own verb. Breaking changes are accepted at each step — preserved empty age groups, arrays instead of xtabs, [N,Inf) labels — with the new class inheriting from list so existing $matrix access keeps working. The label change is explicitly aligned with the contactmatrix package.
◆ Prediction
Expect the deprecated dotted argument names and the remaining in-package download paths to be removed once the contactsurveys handoff completes, leaving contact_matrix() as a thin wrapper over the pipeline.
watina
0.0ANALYTICS
A groundwater database client that has started doing the domain analysis too
◆ Current state
watina is the R interface to the Watina groundwater monitoring database, and its history is mostly about making data retrieval correct: filter depths guessed conservatively when missing, spatial masking, aggregation methods per observation well, and a long series of fixes to keep the lazy database queries working across dbplyr versions. The most recent release moves past retrieval into interpretation, adding ionic ratio calculation and a Van Wirdum diagram to plot chemistry data.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is drifting from a database client toward a domain toolkit. Early releases fought the data layer — connection handling moved to inbodb, sorting semantics changed, defunct dbplyr calls worked around. Recent work assumes retrieval is solved and adds hydrochemical analysis on top, along with defensive handling for the physically impossible inputs that analysis exposes, such as zero conductivity in the warehouse.
◆ Prediction
Expect further chemistry analysis and plotting helpers rather than new retrieval functions, since that is where the newest release invested and where the accompanying vignette points.
Alternatives to socialmixr and watina
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 socialmixr or watina.
tidytransit
tidytransit tracks the GTFS spec as it grows, one reader and one router feature at a time.
oblicubes
A tiny grid renderer for oblique-projection cubes, complete since its first release.
biocro
BioCro swapped an unstable iteration for real root finders, changing what its crop models compute.
redist
redist keeps rewriting the sampler underneath a district-drawing API it has held stable since 4.0.
epiflows
epiflows has shipped four releases in eight years, none of which changed the code.
See all socialmixr alternatives → · See all watina alternatives →
Recent activity from socialmixr and watina
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3mo agosocialmixrContact matrices become a composable pipeline ⚡
- 4mo agowatinaIonic ratios and Van Wirdum diagrams for chemistry data
- 6mo agosocialmixrPatch: load_survey() handles files without cont_id
- 6mo agosocialmixrAge-group assignment and population lookup split out
- 1y agosocialmixrFaster survey loading and cached Zenodo lookups
- 2y agosocialmixrcontact_matrix() now takes survey objects only
- 2y agosocialmixrTest fixes for machine-precision failures
- 2y agowatinaKSgeneral moved to Suggests to survive CRAN removal
- 5y agowatinaDataframe input restored after a defunct dbplyr call
- 5y agowatinadbplyr 2.0 compatibility drops the need for a forked dependency
- 5y agowatinaSpatial clustering of wells and richer location attributes
- 6y agowatinaSoil surface calculation fixed after a select() dropped the variable
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between socialmixr and watina?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. socialmixr and watina 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 socialmixr better than watina?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. socialmixr and watina 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 socialmixr?
Top socialmixr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "socialmixr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/socialmixr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to watina?
Top watina alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "watina alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/watina-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.