PurpleAir
The R client for PurpleAir sensors keeps finding its time-averaging was wrong.
Comparison · Analytics
soilDBdata vs treasury
A side-by-side editorial comparison of soilDBdata and treasury — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
soilDBdata vs treasury: at a glance
What is soilDBdata?
soilDBdata exists so soilDB's tests can run without a NASIS connection.
soilDBdata is a data-only package supplying NASIS and gSSURGO sample datasets as .sqlite assets, installed separately by soilDB's GitHub Actions so unit tests that would otherwise need database access can run. It began as a proof of concept carrying MT663 pedon and component tables used in soil survey coursework, and its most recent release adds a Marshall Islands FY26 gSSURGO dataset. Releases are infrequent and driven by what the parent package needs to test.
What is treasury?
A thin Treasury rates wrapper has stopped adding endpoints and started making its tables self-describing.
treasury wraps the US Treasury's published rate feeds — bill rates, par yields, forward rates, long-term extrapolated rates, and the HQM and breakeven inflation curves — into one set of R functions. Since 0.3.0 every function returns a data.table, and 0.5.0 added optional on-disk response caching with a one-day default. The most recent release is about data fidelity rather than reach: identifying columns, correct maturity labels, and locale-safe date parsing.
soilDBdata vs treasury: editorial side-by-side
soilDBdata
0.0ANALYTICS
soilDBdata exists so soilDB's tests can run without a NASIS connection.
◆ Current state
soilDBdata is a data-only package supplying NASIS and gSSURGO sample datasets as .sqlite assets, installed separately by soilDB's GitHub Actions so unit tests that would otherwise need database access can run. It began as a proof of concept carrying MT663 pedon and component tables used in soil survey coursework, and its most recent release adds a Marshall Islands FY26 gSSURGO dataset. Releases are infrequent and driven by what the parent package needs to test.
◆ Where it's heading
Development follows soilDB rather than leading it: assets get bumped when a soilDB version changes, and purpose lists are updated when soilDB adds a table. The one release that changed what testing is possible was v0.1.1, which added selected-set _View_1 tables alongside whole tables so both SS=TRUE and SS=FALSE code paths could be exercised. Four-year gaps between releases are normal here and do not indicate abandonment — a fixture package only needs to move when the fixtures go stale.
◆ Prediction
The recent addition is a new geography rather than a new table structure, so further releases most likely continue broadening dataset coverage as soilDB gains regions to test against.
treasury
0.0ANALYTICS
A thin Treasury rates wrapper has stopped adding endpoints and started making its tables self-describing.
◆ Current state
treasury wraps the US Treasury's published rate feeds — bill rates, par yields, forward rates, long-term extrapolated rates, and the HQM and breakeven inflation curves — into one set of R functions. Since 0.3.0 every function returns a data.table, and 0.5.0 added optional on-disk response caching with a one-day default. The most recent release is about data fidelity rather than reach: identifying columns, correct maturity labels, and locale-safe date parsing.
◆ Where it's heading
Endpoint coverage looks essentially complete, so the work has moved to the metadata a downstream analyst needs to join and audit results — cusip and maturity_date on bill quotes, the feed's updated_at stamp, and the extrapolation factor behind 2002-2006 long-term rate estimates. Error handling is tightening in the same direction: an out-of-range month now fails with a message instead of quietly returning nothing. That is the profile of a wrapper moving from coverage to correctness, where the remaining bugs are the subtle ones that only surface in other people's locales.
◆ Prediction
Expect further column-level enrichment and input validation on the endpoints already covered rather than new data sources, since the structural pieces — data.table returns and caching — are already in place.
Alternatives to soilDBdata and treasury
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 soilDBdata or treasury.
piecepackr
A board game graphics package runs one of the most disciplined deprecation cycles in R.
e2tree
The explainable-ensemble-tree package now measures whether its own explanations are faithful.
discretefdr
The discrete-data FDR package is being pared into one piece of a larger multiple-testing suite.
contentanalysis
A scientific-text analysis package moved from counting citations to classifying argument structure.
relialearnr
The teaching arm of an R reliability suite keeps pace with whatever its analysis siblings ship.
See all soilDBdata alternatives → · See all treasury alternatives →
Recent activity from soilDBdata and treasury
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agotreasuryBill rates gain CUSIP and maturity date; locale bug fixed
- 3mo agosoilDBdataMarshall Islands FY26 gSSURGO dataset added
- 4mo agotreasuryOptional response caching, one day by default
- 11mo agotreasuryRate functions renamed to singular for consistency
- 1y agotreasuryEvery function now returns a data.table ⚡
- 1y agosoilDBdataMT663 fixtures refreshed for soilDB 2.8.3
- 1y agosoilDBdataNASIS purpose lists updated for siteothvegclass
- 2y agotreasuryHQM, coupon-issue and breakeven inflation curves added
- 4y agosoilDBdataSelected-set _View_1 tables enable SS=TRUE/FALSE testing
- 4y agosoilDBdataProof of concept: MT663 pedon and component .sqlite fixtures
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between soilDBdata and treasury?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. soilDBdata and treasury 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 soilDBdata better than treasury?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. soilDBdata and treasury 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 soilDBdata?
Top soilDBdata alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "soilDBdata alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/soildbdata for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to treasury?
Top treasury alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "treasury alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/treasury for the full list with editorial commentary on each.