Last Updated on March 2, 2026
Positron is a next-generation data science IDE. It’s also an extensible, polyglot tool for writing code and exploring data.
The software provides a familiar environment for reproducible authoring and publishing.
This is free software.
Key Features
- First-class, built-in support for R and/or Python via an integrated Console, with extensibility options for other languages in the future. This native support includes specialized views and panes throughout Positron such as a Data Explorer, Connections Pane, Variables Pane, and more.
- Runs the interpreter separately from the IDE, so unlike in RStudio a crash in R/Python won’t always crash the IDE. It also means that you can swap between versions of your preferred language on the fly without a full reload of the IDE, just the integrated console.
- Supports VS Code compatible extensions (.vsix files), providing extensibility of capabilities beyond the core IDE itself. By building on Code OSS, Positron gets rich text editor capabilities and access to 1,000s of community extensions out of the box. Read more about using extensions with Positron.
- Deeply focused on native data science workflows; it provides a batteries-included and cohesive experience beyond that of a general-purpose IDE or text editor such as VS Code.
- Positron Assistant is a native GenAI client and offers novel data science and Positron-specific context compared to other IDE AI tooling. It provides a data-science-centric IDE and allow the LLM to interact with the most important parts of Positron to get better context for better results! This includes providing optional information such as the active R/Python session state, defined dataframe or other objects, viewing plots from the plots pane, and the console inputs and outputs.
Website: github.com/posit-dev/positron
Support:
Developer: Posit Software, PBC
License: Elastic License 2.0
Positron is written in TypeScript. Learn TypeScript with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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