Does an Rmd document hosted on a Shiny Server/Connect not count towards the "active users" count?

[nomorexl]

I know that with shiny server open source there's only one R process per user. In Server Pro & Connect, there is a predefined number of users who can connect to an app.

I also know that an Rmd document can be hosted on these servers. Since Rmd documents don't need a backend, does this mean they don't count towards these limits? So would hosting an Rmd document mean that thousands of people can open it at the same time and it won't affcet anyone else?

[alexkgold]

Hi @nomorexl,

Thanks for the question! I’d encourage you to reach out to sales@rstudio.com for more details.

The short answer is no — only real humans who deploy content to RStudio Connect or visit it count against the named user limit. So the person who publishes the Rmd would need a named user seat, but not the document itself.

In most cases, viewers would need seats as well, but there are exceptions for content hosted for public consumption. Reaching out to sales@rstudio.com would be the best way to get an answer for your use case.

It’s also worth noting that you can deploy content to RStudio Connect from anywhere. If RStudio Workbench (a recent rebranding of Server Pro) would be useful to you — that will work — but it’s not required. RStudio Open Source Desktop or Server can also work.