Posit PBC provides the Positron IDE
Posit PBC, the creators of RStudio, tidyverse, and Shiny, provides Positron as a free IDE for data science. This tool is purpose-built to help users move from a question to insight and finally to an application. It includes an AI assistant for data science that connects to live Python or R sessions. Because the assistant connects to these sessions, it sees the data being used. This connectivity allows the assistant to help users with exploring, visualizing, building, and debugging. Users can pivot between the exploratory narrative of a notebook and the power of a persistent, multi-session console for Python, R, SQL, and more. The interface allows users to explore and manipulate large local or remote datasets with an intuitive, fast, and interactive UI. This tool enables the development, generation, or preview of local apps, APIs, notebooks, or reports. Users can then publish these works with guided deployments. Because the IDE uses the Elastic License 2.0, it is a source-available product. The AI assistant is a core component of the IDE. It connects to live Python or R sessions, which allows it to see the data being worked on. This connectivity is what enables the assistant to help users with exploring, visualizing, building, and debugging. By seeing the data, the assistant can provide more relevant help during the development process. This interaction between the user and the assistant makes the IDE a more powerful tool for data science.
Software requirements and installation
The software is currently at version 2026.11.0-308. Installation requirements depend on the operating system and specific hardware. For users on Windows, the software requires the latest Visual C++ Redistributable to be installed. Positron works with actively supported versions of Python and can install a version for the user if one is not available. The IDE supports several environment managers including venv, uv, pyenv, and conda. Within the conda ecosystem, users can utilize mamba or pixi. For those using R, version 4.2 or higher is required. R developers can use the rig tool to manage multiple R installations. R package developers must ensure they have current versions of certain R packages to facilitate smoother work within the IDE. Windows users should note that Positron does not bundle Rtools. The IDE also supports venv, which is the standard library virtual environment, and uv for both environment and installation management.
| Platform | Installer | Size |
|---|---|---|
| Windows 10, 11 x64 (system level) | Positron-2026.11.0-308-Setup-x64.exe | 494M |
| Windows 10, 11 x64 (user level) | Positron-2026.11.0-308-UserSetup-x64.exe | 494M |
| Windows 11 arm64 (system level) | Positron-2026.11.0-308-Setup-arm64.exe | 482M |
| Windows 11 arm64 (user level) | Positron-2026.11.0-308-UserSetup-arm64.exe | 481M |
| MacOS 11.0+ (arm64/Apple Silicon) | Positron-2026.11.0-308-arm64.dmg | 881M |
| MacOS 11.0+ (x64/Intel) | Positron-2026.11.0-308-x64.dmg | 911M |
| Debian-based Linux x64 (Ubuntu 20+) | Positron-2026.11.0-308-x64.deb | 507M |
| Debian-based Linux arm64 (Ubuntu 20+) | Positron-2026.11.0-308-arm64.deb | 480M |
| Red Hat-based Linux x64 (RHEL9) | Positron-2026.11.0-308-x64.rpm | 573M |
| Red Hat-based Linux arm64 (RHEL9) | Positron-2026.11.0-308-arm64.rpm | 541M |
The installation process for different architectures is specific. For MacOS users, the installer for the arm64 Apple Silicon version is Positron-2026.11.0-308-arm64.dmg with a size of 881M, whereas the Intel version is identified as Positron-2026.11.0-308-x64.dmg with a size of 911M. Linux users can choose between Debian-based or Red Hat-based installers. Debian users can choose between the 507M x64 deb package or the 480M arm64 deb package. For Red Hat users, the 573M x64 rpm package and the 541M arm64 rpm package are available. For Windows, the system level install for x64 is 494M, while the user level install for x64 is also 494M. The arm64 versions for Windows 11 are 482M for system level and 481M for user level. The software automatically checks for updates once the user has installed it.
Professional deployment on SageMaker
Positron Pro is available via Posit Workbench. This version is also available on Amazon SageMaker, though this deployment is currently in public preview. The Amazon SageMaker implementation uses a custom Docker image. This image includes R and Python environment management via uv. It also includes Quarto and Posit Assistant, which is backed by Amazon Bedrock. Users of this version also have access to professional ODBC drivers from Posit. Because the SageMaker deployment is in public preview, users should expect a limited feature set compared to other versions. Users run this version on SageMaker with a Workbench Advanced license through AWS License Manager. You should check your environment settings before attempting a large-scale deployment. Can the AI assistant handle all remote dataset types?
