RStudio
The standard workbench for the R statistics language, free and open source, with an official Linux build.
Our verdict
RStudio on Linux is the same program students and researchers use on Windows. Posit publishes it themselves, so this is not a community port, and projects, scripts and packages move across without fuss.
You get it from Posit's download page rather than from your app store. There are installer files for Ubuntu and Debian and for Fedora and Red Hat, and you double click them like any other installer. R itself is a separate install, and on most Linux systems that part is in the app store already.
Posit only tests against recent versions of a few distributions. In practice it runs more widely than that list, but if you want the supported path, stick to a current Ubuntu or Fedora release.
What's good
- Posit builds and supports the Linux version itself
- Identical to the Windows version, so your projects and habits carry straight across
- Free and open source, with a paid edition only for companies that need one
- Installer files are provided for both Ubuntu or Debian and Fedora or Red Hat systems
What to know first
- Not in most app stores, so you download an installer file from Posit's site
- Only recent versions of a handful of distributions are officially supported
- R itself has to be installed separately before RStudio is any use
- Heavy on memory with large data sets
The details
- Cost
- Free
- Open source
- Yes (AGPL-3.0)
- How you install it
- .deb installer, .rpm installer
Windows apps it can replace
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