What are the best R IDEs?

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8

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135

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Here’s the Deal

8 Options Considered

Best R IDEs	Price	Platforms	License
-- Vim	-	Linux, macOS, Windows	GPL
-- RStudio	-	-	-
-- Emacs + ESS	-	-	-
-- RKWard	0	-	-
-- Sublime Text + R-Box	-	-	-

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score 23 · Answer 1

Vim

Top Pro

Macros increase productivity

Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand. See More

Top Con

Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic

Text editing in vim is awesome, but it requires thinking about combinations of commands. In other editors, you don't have to think about how to delete this part of code. You just think about how to implement a feature, what is a good design for this code. Even after you get used to using vim, it still requires your brain for editing. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, macOS, Windows

License:GPL

Cross Platform:Yes

Multi Language Support:Yes

See All Specs

Top Pro

Great productivity

Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making most of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches. See More

Top Pro

Tons of plugins/add-ons

This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view. See More

Top Pro

Extremely portable

Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection. See More

Top Pro

Free and open-source software

Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight and fast

When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs. See More

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score 48 · Answer 2

RStudio

Top Con

Poor navigation

No file structure tree, no options to create file in folder. See More

Top Pro

RStudio is complete with profiling, debugging, plots and package management

Francisco García's Experience

Very easy to learn. Easy to install packages, fast and beautiful. See More

Top Con

Interface not very good

Top Pro

It's free

Richard van Laak's Experience

RStudio can not be seen as an IDE. Although running R scripts works okay-ish, missing features like a proper directory/files tree will even fustrate junior developers. See More

Top Con

Costs money for most licenses except student and educator licenses

Top Con

Git integration

Most Git operations have to get handled via command line. See More

See All

score 19 · Answer 3

Emacs + ESS

SpiritedAhti's Experience

Running 10 R processes See More

score 17 · Answer 4

RKWard

Top Pro

KDE native

Available in the OS repository (at least for openSUSE). See More

Top Con

The development version has support for RMarkdown

baumann's Experience

I've been using it for months after moving from Ubuntu to openSUSE, where I used to use RStudio. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform and easy to use

Top Con

Lack of notebook with R markdown

This is a nice feature from RStudio that I miss. See More

ExcitedTsovinar's Experience

works like a charm See More

Top Pro

Very flexible and snappy UI

Top Pro

Can be extended by own plugins

See All

score 2 · Answer 5

Sublime Text + R-Box

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score 3 · Answer 6

StatET

Top Pro

integrated view of files and projects in one pane

Makes life easier. Again, unlike RStudio See More

DreamerDaichinTengri's Experience

stabile See More

Top Pro

Very good object browser

Much more powerful than the meager object browser that RStudio has in its "environment pane" See More

Top Pro

Good integration with Git via the eGit add-in

Far better than the Git integration that RStudio offers See More

See All

score 1 · Answer 7

R Commander

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Answer 8

Revolution R Enterprise

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8 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Vim

My Recommendation for Vim

Macros increase productivity

Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic

Great productivity

Tons of plugins/add-ons

Extremely portable

Free and open-source software

Lightweight and fast

My Recommendation for RStudio

My Recommendation for RStudio

Poor navigation

RStudio is complete with profiling, debugging, plots and package management

Interface not very good

It's free

Costs money for most licenses except student and educator licenses

Git integration

My Recommendation for Emacs + ESS

My Recommendation for Emacs + ESS

My Recommendation for RKWard

My Recommendation for RKWard

KDE native

The development version has support for RMarkdown

Cross-platform and easy to use

Lack of notebook with R markdown

Very flexible and snappy UI

Can be extended by own plugins

My Recommendation for Sublime Text + R-Box

My Recommendation for Sublime Text + R-Box

My Recommendation for StatET

My Recommendation for StatET

integrated view of files and projects in one pane

Very good object browser

Good integration with Git via the eGit add-in

My Recommendation for R Commander

My Recommendation for R Commander

My Recommendation for Revolution R Enterprise

My Recommendation for Revolution R Enterprise

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