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Recurrent-event modelling settles, with mean_no() promoted to stable.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
surveytidy vs tidyplots
A side-by-side editorial comparison of surveytidy and tidyplots — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
surveytidy vs tidyplots: at a glance
What is surveytidy?
surveytidy taught every dplyr verb to operate on a whole collection of surveys at once.
surveytidy is the tidyverse-facing half of a two-package survey stack, wrapping survey design objects from surveycore so filter, mutate, select and the rest work on them while carrying variable labels, value labels and a transformation log alongside the data. The May release extended that verb surface to survey_collection, the abstraction surveycore uses to hold several surveys as one object, so a pipeline written once dispatches across every member.
What is tidyplots?
tidyplots keeps rebuilding its own foundations rather than layering around them.
tidyplots wraps ggplot2 in a pipe-driven API aimed at publication-ready scientific figures, trading grammar-of-graphics flexibility for a shorter path to a finished plot. It is at 0.4.0 after two years of frequent releases, and almost every one carries a breaking change — the most recent moved multi-panel layout off patchwork and onto ggplot2's own faceting. Statistical annotation, colour schemes and size control have each been reworked at least once.
surveytidy vs tidyplots: editorial side-by-side
surveytidy
0.0INFRA · APIS
surveytidy taught every dplyr verb to operate on a whole collection of surveys at once.
◆ Current state
surveytidy is the tidyverse-facing half of a two-package survey stack, wrapping survey design objects from surveycore so filter, mutate, select and the rest work on them while carrying variable labels, value labels and a transformation log alongside the data. The May release extended that verb surface to survey_collection, the abstraction surveycore uses to hold several surveys as one object, so a pipeline written once dispatches across every member.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is being built in two layers that arrive in order: vector-level transformations first, structural dispatch second. The make_* family in 0.4.0 handles the recoding that survey work actually consists of — labelled to factor, multi-level to dichotomous, scale reversal, valence flipping — with value labels propagating automatically. Collection support then applies data-masking, tidyselect, grouping, slicing and collapsing verbs per survey, with joins explicitly refused and a typed message reporting which surveys were skipped. Metadata fidelity is the recurring bug source: labels surviving across(), stale labels left behind by recoding, the transformation log keeping up with what the verbs did.
◆ Prediction
Joins are the one verb family that errors on collections, with users directed to join before constructing the collection, so that restriction is the clearest outstanding gap. The re-export of surveycore's collection constructors suggests the package is positioning itself as the single import users need, which points toward more re-exports as surveycore's stable API settles.
tidyplots
0.0INFRA · APIS
tidyplots keeps rebuilding its own foundations rather than layering around them.
◆ Current state
tidyplots wraps ggplot2 in a pipe-driven API aimed at publication-ready scientific figures, trading grammar-of-graphics flexibility for a shorter path to a finished plot. It is at 0.4.0 after two years of frequent releases, and almost every one carries a breaking change — the most recent moved multi-panel layout off patchwork and onto ggplot2's own faceting. Statistical annotation, colour schemes and size control have each been reworked at least once.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is converging on ggplot2 rather than abstracting away from it: split_plot() now uses facet_wrap and facet_grid, as_tidyplot() was hard-deprecated on the grounds that converting a ggplot was never a good idea, and releases are timed against upstream ggplot2 versions. The other constant is the statistics surface, which has grown from basic error bars to paired and selected comparisons. Breaking changes are announced plainly and frequently, consistent with a package using 0.x to fix its shape before committing.
◆ Prediction
The patchwork removal is described as something that will eventually break dependent code, so the near-term work is likely completing that migration and settling the split_plot() parameters introduced alongside it. A 1.0 would signal the breaking-change cadence is ending, and nothing here indicates that yet.
Alternatives to surveytidy and tidyplots
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 surveytidy or tidyplots.
CptNonPar
Nonparametric change point detection swaps p-values for importance scores.
ggprism
A Prism-styled ggplot2 theme in maintenance, now surviving ggplot2 4.0.
TrendLSW
Wavelet trend estimation tightens the defaults it shipped with.
mmpca
Back from CRAN removal under a new maintainer, with the compiled layer rebuilt.
mice
mice can finally predict, not just estimate, from multiply imputed data.
See all surveytidy alternatives → · See all tidyplots alternatives →
Recent activity from surveytidy and tidyplots
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2mo agosurveytidymutate() syncs metadata for across() recodes
- 3mo agosurveytidydplyr and tidyr verbs dispatch across survey collections
- 5mo agosurveytidyFive label-aware recoding functions for use inside mutate()
- 7mo agotidyplotstidyplots 0.4.0
- 1y agotidyplotstidyplots 0.3.1
- 1y agotidyplotstidyplots 0.2.2
- 1y agotidyplotstidyplots 0.2.1
- 1y agotidyplotstidyplots 0.2.0
- 1y agotidyplotstidyplots 0.1.2
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between surveytidy and tidyplots?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. surveytidy and tidyplots 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 surveytidy better than tidyplots?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. surveytidy and tidyplots 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 surveytidy?
Top surveytidy alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "surveytidy alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/surveytidy for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to tidyplots?
Top tidyplots alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "tidyplots alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tidyplots for the full list with editorial commentary on each.