pr2database
The protist reference database keeps widening past the rRNA gene it was built on.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
ggalign vs ggfootball
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ggalign and ggfootball — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
ggalign vs ggfootball: at a glance
What is ggalign?
Composable aligned layouts, rebuilt on S7 while ggplot2 4.0 lands underneath.
ggalign composes multiple ggplots against a shared observation ordering, covering heatmap annotation, oncoplots, phylogenies and circular layouts. Releases have come roughly monthly through 2025, first completing the layout system, then migrating the internals to S7 and absorbing the ggplot2 4.0 changes. The alignment machinery is now exported for other packages to build on.
What is ggfootball?
A football-viz package just swapped scraping for an API and broke its own output to do it.
ggfootball is a small R package for plotting expected-goals and shot data, sourced from Understat. Four releases are visible. The 0.2.x line was argument tidying and dependency pruning; 0.3.0 replaced the data-acquisition layer wholesale, moving get_match_shots() from HTML parsing onto Understat's AJAX endpoints and changing the returned column names in the process.
ggalign vs ggfootball: editorial side-by-side
ggalign
0.0INFRA · APIS
Composable aligned layouts, rebuilt on S7 while ggplot2 4.0 lands underneath.
◆ Current state
ggalign composes multiple ggplots against a shared observation ordering, covering heatmap annotation, oncoplots, phylogenies and circular layouts. Releases have come roughly monthly through 2025, first completing the layout system, then migrating the internals to S7 and absorbing the ggplot2 4.0 changes. The alignment machinery is now exported for other packages to build on.
◆ Where it's heading
Two threads run in parallel. One widens what can be aligned, with sector facets, ideograms, image point shapes and observation linking. The other keeps rebuilding the foundation, with the S7 migration, repeated renames toward consistent naming, and the deliberate handing of element_polygon() and element_curve() upstream to ggplot2. The renaming is aggressive enough that each recent release soft-deprecates something.
◆ Prediction
With the internals on S7 and the Patch object exported, the next step is most likely stabilising those names rather than another refactor.
ggfootball
0.0INFRA · APIS
A football-viz package just swapped scraping for an API and broke its own output to do it.
◆ Current state
ggfootball is a small R package for plotting expected-goals and shot data, sourced from Understat. Four releases are visible. The 0.2.x line was argument tidying and dependency pruning; 0.3.0 replaced the data-acquisition layer wholesale, moving get_match_shots() from HTML parsing onto Understat's AJAX endpoints and changing the returned column names in the process.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is away from scraped HTML and toward a thinner, more defensible package: four dependencies dropped in 0.3.0 on top of qdapRegex in 0.2.1, input validation added, error messages rewritten. Both breaking changes so far were accepted rather than deferred, which reads as a maintainer treating pre-1.0 as the window to get the shape right. The package is willing to break callers for structural reasons, not cosmetic ones.
◆ Prediction
With the scraper rebuilt and the dependency surface trimmed, the next releases are likely to stabilise the new column names and extend the plotting side, which has seen nothing since 0.2.0. A 1.0 would be the signal that the data structure is now considered fixed.
Alternatives to ggalign and ggfootball
Other Infra & APIs 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 ggalign or ggfootball.
prioritizr
Conservation planning absorbs the literature's target-setting rules as code.
jSDM
Joint species distribution models in Gibbs-sampled C++, quiet since 2023.
rsofun
An ecosystem model starts tracking carbon isotopes and land-use change.
usmap
Ten years in, US mapping splits its data out and finally adds Puerto Rico.
trackeR
Fitness-tracking analysis in slow maintenance, still absorbing upstream breakage.
See all ggalign alternatives → · See all ggfootball alternatives →
Recent activity from ggalign and ggfootball
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 6mo agoggfootballggfootball 0.3.0 ⚡
- 6mo agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.2
- 10mo agoggalignalignpatch internals moved to S7; Patch object exported
- 11mo agoggalignInternals migrated to S7; ideogram, tags and image shapes
- 1y agoggalignz aesthetic scales and guide collection in borders
- 1y agoggalignchannelGrob() draws across facets; ggplot2 3.5.2 fix
- 1y agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.1
- 1y agoggalignLayout system declared complete; polar facets and coord_circle()
- 1y agoggalignLayouts split into discrete and continuous; linking system added ⚡
- 1y agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.0
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ggalign and ggfootball?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ggalign and ggfootball 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 ggalign better than ggfootball?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggalign and ggfootball 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 Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to ggalign?
Top ggalign alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggalign alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggalign for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to ggfootball?
Top ggfootball alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggfootball alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggfootball for the full list with editorial commentary on each.