R is a free software programming language and a software environment for statistical computing and graphics. The R language is widely used among statisticians and data miners for developing statistical software and data analysis.
What's the Difference?
R the application is installed on your computer and uses your personal computer resources to process R programming language. RStudio integrates with R as an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) to provide further functionality. RStudio combines a source code editor, build automation tools and a debugger.
We recommend you install both R and RStudio on your personal computer.
Installing R
![RGui.jpg](https://brightspotcdn.byu.edu/dims4/default/e520d91/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1042x756+0+0/resize/840x609!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbrigham-young-brightspot-us-east-2.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fd2%2F30%2Fd02e2cb54566994422d39235be09%2Frgui.jpg)
To install R to your local computer follow these steps:
- Download the R installer
- For Windows at https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/
- For Mac at https://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/
- Install R by opening the installer and following the steps
- That's it! You can now run R from your local computer
Installing RStudio
![RStudio](https://brightspotcdn.byu.edu/dims4/default/d604208/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1694x1182+0+0/resize/840x586!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbrigham-young-brightspot-us-east-2.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fa2%2Feb%2F3299f5a144509bb6ffe972847435%2Frstudio.jpg)
To install RStudio to your local computer follow these steps:
- Verify you have already installed R and that you can launch the R application
- Download the RStudio Desktop installer at https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/
- Install RStudio Desktop by opening the installer and following the steps
- That's it! You can now run RStudio from your local computer
Please contact a Statistics CSR if you have any difficulty installing R or using RStudio