easystats
The easystats meta-package is install tooling wrapped around a relicensed ecosystem.
Comparison · Analytics
sparklyr vs yardstick
A side-by-side editorial comparison of sparklyr and yardstick — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
sparklyr vs yardstick: at a glance
What is sparklyr?
sparklyr now spends its releases absorbing dbplyr changes and feeding pysparklyr
sparklyr connects R to Spark, and almost nothing in this window originates inside the package. Releases restore compatibility after dbplyr changes its SQL generation, adapt to Spark 4.0 and to R 4.4's version-comparison changes, and convert functions into S3 methods so pysparklyr can supply its own implementations.
What is yardstick?
yardstick made fairness metrics a first-class part of tidymodels evaluation
yardstick supplies the metrics tidymodels evaluates models with. Its recent history is metric expansion into areas the package did not originally cover - survival analysis, model fairness, and in 1.4.0 a batch of regression and classification metrics filling remaining gaps - alongside a long deprecation cycle that finally turned errors on in 1.4.0.
sparklyr vs yardstick: editorial side-by-side
sparklyr
0.0ANALYTICS
sparklyr now spends its releases absorbing dbplyr changes and feeding pysparklyr
◆ Current state
sparklyr connects R to Spark, and almost nothing in this window originates inside the package. Releases restore compatibility after dbplyr changes its SQL generation, adapt to Spark 4.0 and to R 4.4's version-comparison changes, and convert functions into S3 methods so pysparklyr can supply its own implementations.
◆ Where it's heading
Two dependencies set the agenda. dbplyr repeatedly changes identifier quoting and lazy-table internals, and each change costs sparklyr a release. Meanwhile the package is being hollowed into a backend: ml_fit(), spark_apply(), spark_write_delta() and now tune_grid_spark() exist as methods so that pysparklyr, the Databricks Connect path, can override them. Dependency removal - tibble, rappdirs, digest - runs alongside as the package slims down.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next releases to continue tracking dbplyr and Spark versions, and more functions to be converted to methods as functionality shifts toward pysparklyr; new capability arriving in sparklyr itself looks unlikely.
yardstick
0.0ANALYTICS
yardstick made fairness metrics a first-class part of tidymodels evaluation
◆ Current state
yardstick supplies the metrics tidymodels evaluates models with. Its recent history is metric expansion into areas the package did not originally cover - survival analysis, model fairness, and in 1.4.0 a batch of regression and classification metrics filling remaining gaps - alongside a long deprecation cycle that finally turned errors on in 1.4.0.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is coverage plus extensibility. Rather than adding fairness metrics one at a time, 1.3.0 shipped new_groupwise_metric() so group-aware metrics can be defined for the problem at hand, which is the more durable contribution. The parallel thread is removing hidden state: the event_first global option, deprecated in 0.0.7, took until 1.4.0 to become an error.
◆ Prediction
Expect the groupwise constructor to attract more fairness definitions than the three shipped, and the developer-facing metric creation helpers deprecated in 1.2.0 to be removed next; core metric coverage now looks close to complete.
Alternatives to sparklyr and yardstick
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 sparklyr or yardstick.
discrim
discrim settled into a thin engine shim after handing its model definitions to parsnip.
dbparser
dbparser shed its database and CSV writers to become just a DrugBank parser.
desirability2
desirability2 is making multi-metric model selection a first-class tidymodels step.
crosstalk
crosstalk is frozen infrastructure: four releases in five years, mostly CRAN upkeep.
cmdstanr
cmdstanr keeps adding fast approximations beside full HMC, and fighting Windows toolchains.
See all sparklyr alternatives → · See all yardstick alternatives →
Recent activity from sparklyr and yardstick
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agosparklyrRestores compatibility after dbplyr changed Hive quoting
- 3mo agosparklyrAdds tune_grid_spark() for pysparklyr to implement
- 4mo agoyardstickAdds Gini, MSE and rate metrics; old deprecations now error
- 10mo agosparklyrFixes lazy-table field lookup and a name collision
- 1y agosparklyrCatches up with released Spark 4.0; ml_load() reads via Spark
- 1y agoyardstickAll messages translated to cli
- 2y agosparklyrDatabricks autoloader streaming ingestion; R 4.4 fixes
- 2y agosparklyrDrops tibble and rappdirs; retires Spark 2.3 JARs
- 2y agoyardstickFixes wrong weights in roc_curve_survival()
- 2y agoyardstickFairness metrics and a groupwise metric constructor ⚡
- 3y agoyardstickBrier score for classification; tidyselect interface throughout
- 3y agoyardstickNew maintainer; clearer metric_set() errors
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between sparklyr and yardstick?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. sparklyr and yardstick 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 sparklyr better than yardstick?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. sparklyr and yardstick 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 sparklyr?
Top sparklyr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "sparklyr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/sparklyr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to yardstick?
Top yardstick alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "yardstick alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/yardstick for the full list with editorial commentary on each.