Addressing installation challenges to utilize interactive dashboards effectively
What is our primary use case?
I use Posit for both Posit Connect and Posit Workbench. The Workbench is used for development, as there are many packages not supported by RStudio because I didn't have RStudio Pro. Posit Connect is used to host applications, such as the R application and R Shiny application, connecting to Azure SQL and database instances.
What is most valuable?
Posit is valuable because many geo-scientists I work with are more comfortable writing R scripts and using R Shiny, making it a suited choice for them. On top of that, it integrates with the application and database, creating interactive dashboards. While there's a need to manage a significant portion manually, the performance overall is stable.
What needs improvement?
Posit lacks a smooth solution for the build and release pipeline. Its documentation is weak, which can make installation cumbersome for someone without terminal experience. Additionally, there are some cost constraints associated with user scaling and the role management configuration can be tricky.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Posit from January to May.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Initially, I faced issues with the pre-installed instance from the Azure marketplace, which did not work as expected. I overcame these by provisioning my own Linux machine on Azure and managing it myself, which proved effective.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Posit is relatively stable in terms of performance once set up. During the initial setup, however, I encountered issues with dependencies and package management.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There are limitations related to user scaling where costs increase with additional users.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support I received is rated six to seven out of ten. They operate on US time, which can delay responses, sometimes taking up to 48 hours. Their documentation and support responses often refer to existing documentation without providing new insights.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is cumbersome and requires considerable effort, especially concerning dependencies, the mail server, DNS setup, and other configurations. It needs about two to three weeks of dedicated work to establish everything.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
RStudio Pro and Workbench are quite expensive. Workbench is especially costly because it supports multiple sessions, so there's a strategy to use it only during full-phase development, then switch to R desktop to save costs.
What other advice do I have?
If you are strictly focused on R, Posit can be a good fit. However, if you're also dealing with Python or need flexibility with additional customizations, consider DataBricks instead. I rate Posit between five and six.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Enhancing collaboration through seamless integration and versatile application development
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case for Posit involves end-to-end data processing. We start by pulling data from various sources like CSV, Excel, Snowflake, and Databricks. We clean the data, analyze it, and visualize it using tools like ggplot, Shiny dashboards, or R markdown documents. We also use Posit for building models and sharing findings for better insight within the team.
How has it helped my organization?
Posit has significantly improved our ability to collaborate. We can use it to share results and findings instantly within the team and develop Shiny applications for external review. This has led to quicker project iterations and enhanced internal communication and collaboration.
What is most valuable?
I have found Posit’s integration with R, such as the autocomplete feature and the help panel, to be invaluable. These features allow a smooth user experience and eliminate the need to switch between programs for assistance. Additionally, the platform’s ability to build and test Shiny applications is highly beneficial.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see improvements in SSH capabilities. The potential to use local environments on powerful cloud resources through SSH, as seen in other tools like Visual Studio Code, would enhance Posit’s usability for hybrid environments.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Posit for about ten years, including both the free RStudio desktop version and the enterprise version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Posit is generally very stable. It becomes unresponsive only with excessively large datasets or complex computations when our computing resources fall short. Otherwise, it provides a reliable working environment.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is excellent. Using AWS SageMaker, we can easily expand from simple setups to more powerful configurations with multiple GPUs and extensive memory resources. This flexibility accommodates various project requirements.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service is responsive, with ticket responses typically within 24 hours on business days. We also have an account executive for direct communication, which is very beneficial, although their availability is limited to standard business hours.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
At a previous company, we used different software. It did not meet our needs. As an R user, RStudio naturally complements my workflow, making Posit a suitable choice.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of the desktop version of Posit is straightforward and easy. However, the cloud setup for Posit Workbench was handled by the technical team.
What about the implementation team?
Our technical team handled the setup of Posit Workbench on the cloud and described it as straightforward.
What was our ROI?
One of our significant projects using Posit helped business partners prioritize tasks more effectively, saving the company approximately $3 million. This illustrates substantial organizational value and ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Currently, the cost of Posit is reasonable and affordable, although there is an anticipated increase in pricing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Other analytic software solutions were not evaluated extensively, as our team primarily consists of R users, making Posit a logical choice.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend new users to engage with Posit's sales and support teams, as they provide excellent assistance and insights into the product. Posit offers reasonably priced solutions compared to competitors, making it an advantageous choice for data science teams.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Allows users to host different models in one place
What is our primary use case?
We use Posit to deploy applications developed in R and Python. Our team creates applications and models, which they then host on GitHub. We assist them in deploying these models and provide the necessary access and support.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Posit is that it allows users to host different models in one place, making it easy to share with colleagues and teammates.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the product for two to three years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can easily add users by providing AD group access and assigning different access levels—publisher, administrator, or viewer—based on their needs. My company has two instances: production and development. We have around 140 users for production, while for development, we have 180.
How are customer service and support?
I regularly connect with support whenever there are any issues. However, there is a time lag due to time zone differences.
How was the initial setup?
If you're setting up Posit for the first time, it's quite easy. They provide a detailed admin guide with step-by-step instructions, making the deployment process straightforward.
Mapping with RStudio
What do you like best about the product?
The best thing about mapping with RStudio is the ease with which you can adapt your data to what you need to express. Being such a quick language to learn, with RStudio and its tools you just need to be clear on how to convey your idea so that others understand it. Without a doubt, RStudio will help you with that, just take advantage of it.
What do you dislike about the product?
One aspect to improve is the design of the graphics, in this case of the maps. With the changes that exist in the different software of this type, RStudio must set its course towards higher quality in the graphics it generates.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
When working with market studies, I need to find different ways to express the variables I use. Therefore, with a simple NPS on a national scale, I had the opportunity to graph it on a geographic map, which helped me see the behavior of this indicator in the country, including by States and Municipalities.
Review of RStudio
What do you like best about the product?
RStudio is designed to offer an integrated development environment. RStudio is the reason why I chose programming in R. It is easy to use and the design is ideal. I also like that it is easy to update packages. The most outstanding feature is that it not only offers code auto-completion but also file path auto-completion. Although learning to program in R is somewhat complex at first, with RStudio it is easier and worth it.
What do you dislike about the product?
In general, I have no complaints about RStudio. The only thing I can mention is that it takes a while to load the environment. It takes time to process large datasets and they could implement the use of multiple processors. Still, it remains one of the best interfaces for using R.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use RStudio for complex statistical analyses such as structural equation models, Bayesian analyses, and hierarchical models. Fundamentally, I use it for research.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Be patient with the R language. It is complex and takes time to learn, but once you master it, there is nothing better, and RStudio provides all the possible facilities to achieve it.
Why you should use RStudio!
What do you like best about the product?
RStudio is amazing. I love the fact that it is open source, and it works perfectly with R. There are so many packages developed by others that can be easily obtained from CRAN or Bioconductor, making analysis very intuitive and user-friendly. All the functions also come with good documentation and plenty of examples to follow along, which was tremendously helpful when I was starting as a beginner user last year.
What do you dislike about the product?
Sometimes I find that writing your own packages or programs to perform calculations is not so simple. For example, I tried to write a function that would classify a set of products and perform a similarity calculation between suppliers. Writing new functions from scratch was a bit difficult for me, as I didn't find very good documentation that was easy to follow. I have had to rely on others' packages, which have also worked well.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I am using RStudio to run predictive analyses, specifically I am trying to predict sales for a given week based on predictors such as the number of visits to our website, the links users click on, their purchase history, etc. RStudio has very good functions for building regression and machine learning models for this type of work. I realized that the biggest benefit is that it is free. I previously used Stata, so I had to pay.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Definitely recommended - it is free for everyone, which is especially a great benefit for students. Use it more in classes to expose students to a variety of visualization, modeling, and data mining tasks.
Great tool for programming small scripts that facilitate management tasks
What do you like best about the product?
The speed with which scripts are executed and the wide possibilities it offers for programming them.
What do you dislike about the product?
Sometimes reading tabs in certain Excel files is not very dynamic.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Considerable reduction in management times thanks to automatic cross-referencing of Excel files.
