# RStudio Desktop Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is RStudio Desktop the right Integrated Development Environment (IDE) solution for you? Explore 118 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/210152/RStudio/reviews --- RStudio Desktop 4.7 (118) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/210152/RStudio/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of RStudio Desktop Ease of use 4.3 Customer Service 4.3 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews Sara L ManagementFinancial Services, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “When developing scripts in R, this IDE is the one that should everyone one choose due to its wide range of functionalities.“ December 27, 2023 Gbenga S construction managerCivil Engineering, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “R Studio Desktop can be slow or laggy, especially when working with large datasets, for new users tutorial is needed“ February 10, 2023 AH Anette H StudentBiotechnology, Self-employedUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “Additionally, the software comes with an excellent integration with the ggplot2 library that allows the creation of attractive plots in no time, perfect for school reports.“ January 10, 2023 FS Filipe S Masters Student in Industrial Engineering and ManagementResearch, 5,001 - 10,000 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months. “Finding errors can also be challenging, since there is not that many information available online when compared to Python for example.“ July 5, 2022 AH Anette H StudentBiotechnology, Self-employedUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “In addition, one important aspect is its collaboration features and its ability to share projects, code, and data with classmates via GitHub or RStudio Cloud, which has been helpful during team projects.“ January 10, 2023 CS Cruz S Master studentHigher Education, 501 - 1,000 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “You can not customize colors and themes on the interfase.“ January 9, 2023 MK Mowshori K Researcher Education Management, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Using libraries like ddR or multiDplyr, R can process huge amounts of data in parallel or through distributed computing for our research project.“ September 18, 2022 MK Mowshori K Researcher Education Management, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Other languages for programming, like MATLAB and Python, are much slower than R.“ September 18, 2022 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 118 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Vivek S. Analytics Consultant Consumer Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "R for Data Analysts" November 19, 2021 5.0 R was created keeping the data science community in mind, and till date it has lived up to their standards. It is a tool purely focused on analytics and creation of machine learning models. Its libraries allows users to tweak every possible parameters to get the desired results. Pros It has always been a tool for statisticians. It provides very specific ML libraries for very specific tasks. The libraries are strategically developed to cater to every minute hyperparameter tuning to achieve optimum results. RStudio allows the codes to be converted to markdowns which can be converted to HTML pages and published as websites effortlessly. Cons As mentioned, the R language is quite challenging for naïve users and hence its documentation is also very technical. Its requires some time to gain hands-on experience to get used to this tool. The customer support is also not quite established as compared to python. Switched from [Spyder](https://www.capterra.com/p/235569/Spyder/) RStudio provided better options as well as flexibility to create optimized machine learning models Review Source Prince J. Consultant Farming Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great tool for coding in R" May 19, 2021 5.0 I've used RStudio to build out code that can help run simple systems that help save a lot of time. Our most important need is that we had to do calculations using data from different sources that can manually take hours but RStudio allows us to get it done within minutes! And the best thing is that you can customize the output better than some other software out there. So overall, I like it a lot but I can understand why some may need something even more powerful. Pros This is the best way to code in R and run code that could be helpful for all tasks from the mundane (like renaming or moving files) to the more advanced (like calculations across multiple excel sheets and creating a new master excel sheet with all of the data). Variables are clearly defined in the workspace at the top right, console at the bottom left - your typical work layout which helps with consistency. Overall, I love how powerful it is and like how many different packages are available. Cons It's not as fast as some other software, but even for being free, this is more than enough. There isn't a lot of help for using this program either and I feel like I only knew about it because we've used it in school. Overall, the UI could get an update in looks to be more updated with the current times. Alternatives considered [PyCharm](https://www.capterra.com/p/186625/PyCharm/) Reason for choosing RStudio Desktop Easiest coding system to use at the time and had an easier interface for other users. Switched from [SAS Analytics Pro](https://www.capterra.com/p/214002/SAS-Analytics-Pro/) Cost - SAS is extremely expensive compared to the free version of RStudio Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Research Assistant Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "R Studio - larger learning curve than SPSS but will save you money" September 22, 2020 3.0 R studio works well, but it could be better. It's an open source software so I do not know if I should expect it to be better, though. You get more than what you pay for (nothing), but the expensive options are worth the price if you can afford it. Pros I love the price of R/Rstudio - free! Competitors such as SPSS/IBM are expensive for one year licenses. I love how Rstudio is open source. Cons I dislike how it's more similar to traditional python coding. Competitors such as SPSS have point and click options that are more comprehensive and straightforward. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Managing Director Civil Engineering Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Exceptional IDE for Working with Data" March 30, 2021 5.0 I have found using RStudio intuitive, easy, and fun to use. I continue to marvel at the big and little things the developers have implemented that makes this a world class IDE and an indispensable tool for data analysis, data visualization, and general purpose coding. Pros RStudio is a delightful IDE for working with Rlang and data. The ability to view tables instantly as you write each line of code allows for deeper insights and better coding. The table viewer even has sort and filtering functions to assist with the coding. The IDE functions make finding the right code commands and their arguments as simple as can be hoped. The layout of the screen and the ability to break out separate windows is really great and makes using the software on a single screen or multiple screens very friendly. Cons Missing since of the third party add-ons of IDEs like PyCharm or Visual Studio that enable greater customisation. Alternatives considered [Microsoft Visual Studio](https://www.capterra.com/p/80230/microsoft-visual-studio/)[PyCharm](https://www.capterra.com/p/186625/PyCharm/)[Visual Studio Code](https://www.capterra.com/p/186634/Visual-Studio-Code/) Reason for choosing RStudio Desktop RStudio is superior in all respects for Rlang and data science. It is far more developed and versatile for data analysis. Review Source IU Ibraheem U. Student Higher Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "R Studio" February 3, 2022 4.0 I usually perform simulation, statistical analysis and optimization. It's help me save time and lots of variety of options to analysis Pros It's user friendly nature and it's community Cons The graph and charts need to made more simple so that even a layman can do it. Likewise the way results are printed to the screen Alternatives considered [Stata](https://www.capterra.com/p/119880/Stata/)[Wing Python IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/182470/Wing-Python-IDE/) Reason for choosing RStudio Desktop It's can solve most of optimization problems and always statistical analysis Switched from [IBM SPSS Statistics](https://www.capterra.com/p/250819/IBM-SPSS-Statistics/)[Microsoft Excel](https://www.capterra.com/p/176574/Excel/) It's can solve most of optimization problems and always statistical analysis Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Data Analytics Manager Logistics and Supply Chain Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The best IDE out there for R programming" June 14, 2022 5.0 Overall, I think RStudio is one of the best and most complete IDEs out there. For R programming specifically, it gives me a lot of flexibility and productivity boosts which is hard to do with any other R IDE. Pros I like the completeness of RStudio as an IDE. It has lots of useful features and integrations with R packages that just boosts my productivity. Cons I'd like more theme options to choose from. Other than that, I don't really have anything I dislike about RStudio. Alternatives considered [The Jupyter Notebook](https://www.capterra.com/p/234967/The-Jupyter-Notebook/) Reason for choosing RStudio Desktop RStudio is easily the best code editor for R. Review Source SS Sreekanta S. Research Analyst Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The sophisticated features and tools of R make it a fantastic choice for researchers." August 4, 2022 5.0 In terms of statistical modeling and analysis, R is one of the most used programming languages. Pros Programming in R is available for free and without restrictions. So, there are no requirements for employment, including fees or licenses. R is a state-of-the-art program that gets updates whenever new features are published. R has a renowned set of graphics libraries. These libraries provide assistance and improve the R development environment. The libraries that R provides are numerous and have many different uses. Being able to open the code editor in a separate window is a wonderful feature. With R, creating impressive graphs and charts is simple. Cons R is not able to be used in online applications, for example, which is just one of many restrictions it has. R lacks sufficient security. MATLAB and Python are both considerably faster than R as a programming language. Switched from [IBM SPSS Statistics](https://www.capterra.com/p/250819/IBM-SPSS-Statistics/) it is costly for sometimes for some researcher. Review Source Austin M. Software Analyst Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "RStudio, your Python buddy IDE" April 11, 2024 4.0 I was a user migrated from Eclipse to RStudio, and the change of coding language and environment was rough at the start, but once it gets going, it's amazing how fast you can solve every day problems like it's nothing. Pros I think the best thing about RStudio Desktop are the scheduler for Python scripts, personally these have saved hours of tedious work making it a must-use tool for our team. Cons Maybe the first time configuration could be a little more intuitive or assisted, once you set up the initial config it's really simple to follow along tutorials or videos to make work. Switched from [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) I made the change because of a different work environment and languages. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer PhD Candidate Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Excellent tool for modelling!" October 29, 2019 5.0 Pros Really great tool and the execution time is quite low! Cons There is nothing that I did't like about R-Studio. Switched from [MATLAB](https://www.capterra.com/p/125813/MATLAB/) For the execution time and because R-Studio is free of charge. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Researcher at UXDM lab Higher Education Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Code with simple insights to what you do" July 12, 2021 5.0 Overall, I could write my desired code and do my job using powerful packages which were available. Pros R studio provides a user-friendly environment for R-coder, especially for beginners. The environment provides easy access to variables and their values which is more critical to beginners who need to know what is happening in each part of the code. Cons This might be a pain point for R overall and not specifically for R studio. However, there are different syntaxes for doing one task when working with some data types, which might get confusing. I prefer simplicity with only one solution. Switched from [MATLAB](https://www.capterra.com/p/125813/MATLAB/) It was way more robust and easier to use compared to Matlab. Review Source MM Marianela M. Marine biologist student Environmental Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "RStudio: from scary to lifesaver" August 23, 2021 4.0 It helps me to analized, organized and get explanatory and understandable graphics of my time serie data. I work with a great amount of numeral data that could make me go mad but RStudio helps a lot. It is not that scary once you understand how to use the program, in fact it has become one of the most important tools in my research. Pros RStudio becomes my best friend. It is so practical to use when you get used to. I work with great amounts of data, time series data of phytoplankton, and having the right packages and codes make my work so simpler. I can analyze and get beautiful and explanatory graphics in a few minutes. The coding part is very handy and it can be editing and saved so you do not lose any code or project for the future. Last but not least, it has an universe of graphic design (colours, shapes,...) that adapts to whatever you need. Cons I have been using the 1.4.1106 version of RStudio and I have a big problem, every once in a while the program crashed and get closed. I could not find any solution to that problem and it keeps happening. Apart from that, it is a very handy program but you need to learn how to use it and, at first, it is not easy at all. So many steps and packages that you have to be very careful or you are gonna end up very frustrating and angry. It could help a lot to bundle functions from different packages (that are statistically related) into one and the program could provide a "first approach" tutorial when you install it for the first time. Review Source AP Anastasios P. Data Science Manager Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best IDE for R" January 4, 2023 5.0 The best IDE for R programmers. Overall great functionality and easy of use. Pros Great functionality. Easy to write/edit/modify code. Easy to use and navigate. Great range of options from just writing code to create Reports (RMarkdown) and dashboards (RShiny). Cons Integration with Git might be a bit complex. The Plot Panel is quite limited. Review Source KS Kimberly S. Statistician Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great open-source software for statisticians by statisticians" October 27, 2022 5.0 Pros I love the features that allow you to write free open source code to create beautiful output in minutes to be placed in projects and make presentations right in the application. R is a very expandable language and there a many packages that are available to use. Cons There is a learning curve at first, and do to the amount of information available and packages that can be used, it can be hard to narrow down at first what functions to use when. I wish that RStudio made it easier for people to collaborate with people on their team by allowing web access to make the R files like Google Docs - multiple people can edit the same R file at the same time. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Analyst Research Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Excellent IDE for R." December 18, 2018 4.0 Overall, an excellent IDE for the R language. Not as smooth and bug-free as could be. Pros An excellent R IDE for beginner and expert alike. A ton of useful features that makes using R extremely easy, such auto-completion, documentation browser, R Notebooks functionality, data viewer, debugging and build tools, GitHub integration, and more. Doesn't hurt that it looks good too, with the available themes. Cons Can be a little slow and sometimes glitchy. For example, the data viewer often cannot hand large data samples. Will sometimes crash for no particular reason. The R Notebooks functionality, though still very useful, is currently buggy and missing obvious features - could be much better! Furthermore, there are some features that are lacking compared to a customisable text editor such as Atom. Review Source CC Carlos C. Research Fellow Higher Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A de facto standard for R Developers" March 30, 2021 5.0 It has almost everything an R developer will ever need + some features that are particularly appealing for data scientists (using R) that other generic IDEs are lacking, such as the integration with knitr, pandoc, and markdown, bibliographies and visual editor, that make them particularly appropriate for writing papers or other types of reports. Pros \* Features: it has almost every feature a developer may need + some specific ones for R developers (such as the integration with Knitr and Rmd files) \* Objects' explorer is a must in data science, and Rstudio's is particularly good for exploring and giving lot of information about every object in a glimpse. \* Multi-platform: GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac \* FLOSS \* It is used extensively within the R Community \* Can be used with python, too Cons \* Lacks refactoring capabilities \* Not as appealing as other more modern IDES (such as VSCode) \* Not so good for languages other than R \* Not extensible Review Source JO John O. Consultant Banking Used the software for: 2+ years ### "RStudio is a versatile independent development environment " January 5, 2021 5.0 My overall experience with RStudio has been very positive. My prior experience in code writing was mainly in SAS, STATA and Matlab. RStudio seems to be a much better IDE than those used by these commercial software applications. Pros RStudio is easy to install and use for programming. It has all the features one expects an IDE to have and the display makes accessing features clear and simple. The popularity of R and RStudio means there is an abundance of information, free tutorials and support from programming websites like DataCamp. For python users you can link RStudio to python for an IDE. Finally, RStudio is superior for code preparation and testing than to other freely available IDEs such as Microsoft's Visual Studio Code. Cons I have no significant complaints about RStudio. The problem of backwards compatibility of different versions of R and R packages is not an RStudio problem, and RStudio works with all versions of R and R packages. RStudio might look into ways to make the creation of projects that maintain R compatibility via the packrat package more prominent. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Data analyst Government Administration Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Making coding simpler " July 5, 2022 5.0 R studio is my go-to for writing code and sharing work with others Pros The user interface offers some point and click functionality, which makes it easier to ease others into the software who don’t have a coding background. It’s really nice to be able to access the console, graphics viewers, raw data and help files from a single screen! Cons Sometimes users can get overwhelmed by the number of available packages, some of which have functions that are masked by earlier downloads Review Source PDY Prasanna Dhammika Y. Instructor Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "R Studio For Data Mining" October 9, 2020 5.0 Basically, I have good memories with this software. When I was learning as a graduate, I used to use this R studio to solve some statistical and mathematical problems which are given by my lectures. There are many aspects of this R studio. If you are a Student, Statisticians or Mathematician, still you may able to use this in order to make things easy. It has given many options to get some quality graphs that are not available in other software. You have so many ways to present your output. You have a bunch of options to do some analysis in different techniques. But this is highly recommended for those who are familiar with statistics or Mathematics. Pros When we want to take the analysis output, there are so many options available according to that scenario such as R notebook, R markdown, R shiny etc. The very best second thing is this is open-source software( you do not need to buy it) Cons When I am dealing with some data mining process, I need to install some packages and I should have a great awareness about those packages in order to get the best output. Review Source AH Anette H. Student Biotechnology Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "RStudio Desktop review as a student" January 10, 2023 4.0 I have been using RStudio Desktop as a Biomedical Science student as part of my courses Applied Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. It is a powerful tool that provides an IDE for data analysis and visualization with R. RStudio Desktop has a user-friendly and intuitive interface which makes it easy to write and execute code, manage packages and libraries, and visualize data all in one place. In addition, one important aspect is its collaboration features and its ability to share projects, code, and data with classmates via GitHub or RStudio Cloud, which has been helpful during team projects. Additionally, the software comes with an excellent integration with the ggplot2 library that allows the creation of attractive plots in no time, perfect for school reports. Overall, I would highly recommend RStudio Desktop to any science student for data analysis and visualization. Pros What I like the most about RStudio Desktop is its intuitive and user-friendly interface, which allows people with non to limited knowledge of data science or coding, to perform statistic analysis with very little issues. Cons The software can be quite resource-intensive, which can slow down the computer, especially when working on large projects. I have also encounter some bugs when installing packages. Review Source ON Ogechi N. Decision science analyst Financial Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Awesome free analytical software" April 20, 2021 5.0 I used r-studio to clean/visualize data and run analyses for a psychology study I worked on. It helped me build on my basic statistical knowledge and gain confidence in my querying. Pros R-studio is one of the easiest to use statistical tools. It's clean, sleek interface is very intuitive and user friendly. It can handle large amounts of data and it suggests functions as you type, making it very beginner friendly. R-studio was a life saver for me in graduate school and is now a convenient tool I use in my work as an analyst. Cons R-studio automatically updates periodically which can be a pain. Also, it cannot run multiple queries at the same time. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Faculty Research Assistant Higher Education Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Versatile and Essential for Professional-Looking Reports" November 28, 2020 5.0 Although I have less than a year in experience with rstudio, I have been able to improve the throughput of my work reporting while simultaneously improving the appearance of my data outputs and graphics. Pros Between rscripts and rmarkdown features in combination with the open-source nature and development community, anything seems possible in rstudio. I really love how versatile it is in creating professional looking graphics and tables, as well as how intuitive the syntax is to learn. Cons I have very little to dislike about rstudio, but do with the command help pages provided more in-depth examples, however, this is more reflective on the packages themselves. Review Source Matheus A. Consultant International Trade and Development Used the software for: 2+ years ### "R-Studio - the main IDE for R" December 5, 2019 5.0 R-studio is the main integrated development environment (IDE) for R and it is very good. Pros R-studio allows a much more user friendly use of R. It integrates four basic screens (script, console and 2 support screens for help, environment, etc) and features like markdown. Cons User friendly as it is, R-studio still needs you to know how to use R language which might have a steep learning curve for some. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Software Engineer Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Excellent IDE and platform for R programming" April 16, 2021 4.0 Quite satisfied and content for R programming with RStudio Pros 1, Great coding platform for R - one of the best ones for R programming widely used for statistical programming and machine learning 2. Awesome integration with UI - RShiny to directly showcase backend work 3. Awesome light and dark mode for user preferences 4. Direct git integrations for faster and convenient coding with collaboration 5. Easy to install and run Cons Doesn't have too many features like which are available in other programming IDEs like Eclipse for Java Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Data Officer Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The best IDE for data analysis, and not just R" April 18, 2019 5.0 Pros Rstudio is basically the go-to IDE for R code. Period. What I like the most is the way it can handle R scripts, markdown, notebooks, other languages as well (python, sql, etc.) and even latex syntax if you need it. Cons The only downsides I've always experienced are: memory efficiency and the fact that it is quite slower than "console R". Also, sudden crashes are quite annoying. Review Source David W. Head of Engineering - Data and BI Information Technology and Services Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Excellent, professional, open-source R and Python IDE" May 25, 2022 5.0 We've engaged a data scientist who is doing great things with RStudio to analyse sentiment, predict risks, and perform all other kinds of analysis on our data. Pros When it comes to data science and machine learning, R and Python are the languages of choice, and RStudio allows us to develop, host, and share data products with ease - and with a vast range of professional features yet all wrapped up nicely in a free and open-source software solution. There is literally no barrier to getting started with RStudio. Cons There can be a bit of a learning curve; R is not necessarily the easiest language to start working with. Also, the CRAN libraries house so many shared items of code that it can be an effort to trawl through them to find quality options. A sizeable number of libraries made available are, unfortunately, not great - but that's the nature of open source. Review Source Similar Products Featured ## Related categories [Integrated Development Environment (IDE)](https://www.capterra.com/ide-software/)[Source Code Management](https://www.capterra.com/source-code-management-software/)