RStudio has officially changed its name to Posit, a rebranding move that reflects the company’s expanding focus beyond the R programming language to embrace tools and workflows for Python and Visual Studio Code users. The announcement was made at the company’s annual user conference in Washington, D.C., and signals Posit’s intent to become a more inclusive platform for the data science and software development communities. By moving away from a name so strongly associated with R, Posit aims to reach a broader audience and encourage companies to consider their tools and services even if they primarily use Python or other languages.
Posit has been positioning its products as “bilingual” for both R and Python for several years, emphasizing a commitment to supporting data science across multiple languages. However, many potential users and companies still associated the “RStudio” brand exclusively with the R language, creating a perception barrier for Python users. According to Hadley Wickham, the company’s chief scientist, the RStudio name has increasingly felt limiting in reaching a larger user base. The rebranding to Posit aims to clarify that the company’s products are designed for a wide range of programming languages and data workflows, not just R.
Despite the name change, Posit’s leadership is quick to reassure the R community that R remains a core focus. Both Wickham and company founder and CEO J.J. Allaire emphasized that Posit is not abandoning R in favor of Python. They clarified that while the company is expanding to meet the needs of Python users, R will continue to be a significant part of the company’s ecosystem and mission. Wickham expressed his ongoing dedication to R, saying, “I’ll learn a little bit about Python, but I’m not going to stop writing R code.” This commitment should reassure long-time R users that the language is still an essential component of Posit’s offerings.
The name change to Posit is also tied to the company’s vision for building a sustainable model for open-source software development. CEO J.J. Allaire highlighted that the company has found a path to fund open-source initiatives sustainably through its commercial products. This model allows Posit to maintain its commitment to open-source projects without adopting the aggressive growth-at-all-costs approach that can sometimes lead companies away from their founding mission. With the new Posit brand, the company is positioned to support an expanding community of data scientists and developers across multiple programming environments while staying true to its original values.