tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Comparison · Analytics
Tplyr vs vcr
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Tplyr and vcr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Tplyr vs vcr: at a glance
What is Tplyr?
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
Tplyr builds clinical summary tables through a layered grammar — count, descriptive statistics, and shift layers assembled onto a table object. The 1.0.0 release added a traceability metadata framework that lets a user ask which source rows produced any given cell, and later releases extended it to cases the first pass missed. The package is maintained by Atorus within the pharmaverse ecosystem.
What is vcr?
Added the HTTP client everyone moved to, then deleted a decade of its own public surface.
vcr records HTTP interactions to disk so R package tests can replay them without network access. Two releases define its current state. Version 1.6.0 added httr2 support alongside the existing httr and crul backends, following the R ecosystem's migration to httr2. Version 2.0 then removed a large amount of accumulated public surface — the logging functions, vcr_last_error(), the exported R6 classes including RequestHandler, Request, VcrResponse and HTTPInteractionList, and several configuration options that had stopped working or could not be implemented correctly.
Tplyr vs vcr: editorial side-by-side
Tplyr
0.0ANALYTICS
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
◆ Current state
Tplyr builds clinical summary tables through a layered grammar — count, descriptive statistics, and shift layers assembled onto a table object. The 1.0.0 release added a traceability metadata framework that lets a user ask which source rows produced any given cell, and later releases extended it to cases the first pass missed. The package is maintained by Atorus within the pharmaverse ecosystem.
◆ Where it's heading
Post-1.0 work has been about completing the metadata story and filling gaps in layer composition rather than adding table types — metadata for missing subjects, add_anti_join(), missing-subject rows, data limiting, and fixes to nested count layers where an inner value appears under several outer groups. Releases cluster tightly after a major version, then go quiet, and the window ends with a patch issued days after the release it corrects.
◆ Prediction
Further releases will most likely continue closing traceability and nested-layer edge cases rather than introducing new layer types, following the pattern of both post-1.0 feature releases.
vcr
0.0ANALYTICS
Added the HTTP client everyone moved to, then deleted a decade of its own public surface.
◆ Current state
vcr records HTTP interactions to disk so R package tests can replay them without network access. Two releases define its current state. Version 1.6.0 added httr2 support alongside the existing httr and crul backends, following the R ecosystem's migration to httr2. Version 2.0 then removed a large amount of accumulated public surface — the logging functions, vcr_last_error(), the exported R6 classes including RequestHandler, Request, VcrResponse and HTTPInteractionList, and several configuration options that had stopped working or could not be implemented correctly.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is consolidating after years of additive growth. The 2.0 removals are almost all things that were exported without needing to be, or options that promised behaviour the implementation could not guarantee — check_cassette_names() was deprecated precisely because it cannot be made correct. Cassette maintenance is being simplified too, with re_record_interval now the single mechanism for expiring recordings.
◆ Prediction
Expect the post-2.0 releases to be about migration support and fallout from the removed API, since the breaking list is long enough that reverse dependencies will surface problems. Async support for httr2 stays blocked until req_perform_parallel gains a mocking hook, which the entries note is upstream work.
Alternatives to Tplyr and vcr
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 Tplyr or vcr.
rlistings
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
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.
Recent activity from Tplyr and vcr
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8mo agovcr2.0 removes the logging API and the exported R6 classes ⚡
- 1y agovcrMaintainer email address updated
- 2y agovcrAdds httr2 support alongside httr and crul ⚡
- 2y agoTplyrMissing-subject metadata, add_anti_join(), and nested-layer fixes
- 3y agoTplyrMetadata vignette fix and parenthesis hugging
- 3y agovcrDrops compilation; test setup moves back to helper files
- 3y agoTplyrDenominator logic fix ahead of CRAN release
- 3y agovcrFixes request matching with escaped characters
- 3y agoTplyrReverse-dependency fix
- 3y agoTplyr1.0.0 introduces the traceability metadata framework ⚡
- 5y agovcrvcr_test_path() finds the package root correctly
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Tplyr and vcr?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Tplyr and vcr 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 Tplyr better than vcr?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Tplyr and vcr 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 Tplyr?
Top Tplyr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Tplyr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tplyr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to vcr?
Top vcr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "vcr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/vcr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.