Managing Multiple R Versions in RStudio Across a Team (Without Workbench License)

RStudio IDE
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Our team is facing challenges managing multiple versions of R across various RStudio projects. We use RStudio on different operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux), but we do not have a Posit/RStudio Workbench license. One specific issue is that we’ve developed an RShiny app that will only publish successfully from one team member's machine due to differences in R versions across our environments.

We are exploring several options to resolve this issue, including:

  • Using renv to manage project environments, but we've encountered limitations since renv doesn’t support different base R versions.
  • Conda for virtual environment management.
  • Docker to containerize projects and their dependencies.

What is the best practice for managing multiple versions of R across a team, given that we don't have access to RStudio Workbench? Ideally, we need a solution that allows sharing a consistent environment (including base R version and package dependencies) across different OSs and ensures smooth collaboration, particularly for deploying Shiny apps.

Thank you in advance for any recommendations!

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Have a look at Rix: Reproducible Environments with Nix • rix it's still very new, but I really enjoyed Bruno's book on building reproducible pipelines with R: https://raps-with-r.dev/

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Thanks so much for the response. Rix was not even on my radar. I'll definitely take a look.

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