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Comparison · Infra & APIs

goat vs mpactr

A side-by-side editorial comparison of goat and mpactr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

goat vs mpactr: at a glance

Featuregoatmpactr
SectorInfra & APIsInfra & APIs
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesbioinformatics, gene-set-analysis, r-package, cranmetabolomics, mass-spectrometry, peak-filtering, data-import
Last editorial update41m ago2h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is goat?

A gene-set enrichment package that outgrew its human-only origins, then went quiet.

GOAT is a CRAN-published R package for gene set enrichment testing, now at 1.1.4. The visible arc runs from a 2024 beta through a first public CRAN release to a 1.1 line that broadened the package past human gene sets and added persistence for completed analyses. Recent releases are small: the newest ships an igraph handle on plot_network() plus bug fixes.

Read the full goat trajectory →

What is mpactr?

mpactr spent two spring releases normalizing case in metadata after users kept tripping on it.

mpactr filters mass-spectrometry peak tables — removing contaminants, ion duplicates and low-reproducibility features before downstream metabolomics analysis — with a data.table and Rcpp core. Development is slow and the recent releases are small. The May pair both address the same friction: column names and imported table names arriving in inconsistent case and failing to match.

Read the full mpactr trajectory →

goat vs mpactr: editorial side-by-side

G
goat
INFRA · APIS
0.0

A gene-set enrichment package that outgrew its human-only origins, then went quiet.

◆ Current state

GOAT is a CRAN-published R package for gene set enrichment testing, now at 1.1.4. The visible arc runs from a 2024 beta through a first public CRAN release to a 1.1 line that broadened the package past human gene sets and added persistence for completed analyses. Recent releases are small: the newest ships an igraph handle on plot_network() plus bug fixes.

◆ Where it's heading

The substantive expansion happened in the 1.1 cycle; everything since has been maintenance and plotting ergonomics. Each release since 1.1 touches one function and returns something callers previously had to reconstruct, which reads as a package settling into a stable API and responding to individual user requests rather than pursuing new scope. The 13-month gap between 1.1.2 and 1.1.4 puts it firmly in low-cadence maintenance.

◆ Prediction

Expect continued point releases that expose internals from the plotting functions or refresh the bundled GO release, not new analysis capability. The entries give no signal of a planned 1.2.

M
mpactr
INFRA · APIS
0.0

mpactr spent two spring releases normalizing case in metadata after users kept tripping on it.

◆ Current state

mpactr filters mass-spectrometry peak tables — removing contaminants, ion duplicates and low-reproducibility features before downstream metabolomics analysis — with a data.table and Rcpp core. Development is slow and the recent releases are small. The May pair both address the same friction: column names and imported table names arriving in inconsistent case and failing to match.

◆ Where it's heading

The package is stabilizing its input contract rather than growing its filtering methods. Metadata column names are now forced lowercase inside import_data() regardless of how the file was written, imported peak_tables names not present in the injection column are lowercased too, and get_meta_data() was renamed to get_metadata() in the same pass. Before that the work was infrastructural — Rcpp introduced to speed up filtering, data.table moved from Depends to Imports, and memory errors cleared so the package passes Valgrind and both sanitizers. Note the earliest entry compares against a v1.0.0 tag that precedes 0.1.0 in the repository, so version ordering in this feed is not reliable.

◆ Prediction

The case-normalization work has now touched both metadata columns and peak table names across two consecutive releases, which suggests the input-matching problem is not fully closed and a third pass is plausible. Nothing in these entries points to new filtering methods.

Alternatives to goat and mpactr

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 goat or mpactr.

See all goat alternatives → · See all mpactr alternatives →

Recent activity from goat and mpactr

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 3mo agompactrPeak table names lowercased when absent from the injection column
  2. 3mo agompactrMetadata column names forced lowercase; get_metadata() renamed
  3. 6mo agogoatplot_network() now hands back the igraph object
  4. 10mo agompactrValgrind and sanitizer memory issues cleared
  5. 1y agompactrRcpp added to speed up filtering; data.table moved to Imports
  6. 1y agogoatFix for a reduce_genesets() infinite loop
  7. 1y agogoatGene sets beyond human, and analyses you can reload
  8. 1y agompactrmpactr 0.1.0
  9. 2y agogoatFirst public release, now on CRAN
  10. 2y agogoatplot_lollipop() gains barplots and an effect-size axis
  11. 2y agogoatBeta 0.9.5 tagged, with no changes described

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between goat and mpactr?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. goat and mpactr 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 goat better than mpactr?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. goat and mpactr 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 goat?

Top goat alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "goat alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/goat for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to mpactr?

Top mpactr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "mpactr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mpactr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.