Deploy Shiny Application

Shiny is a very convenient way to add interface to your R script / application.

The next big question is how to share your Shiny application with clients. Probably the easiest way is to host your Shiny application on the Shiny Server. But let’s say the application is computationally intensive, it uses client’s proprietary data, and you want to create a stand-alone version that can be run locally on the client’s computer.

Following are few tutorials with step by step instructions to package your Shiny application into stand-alone application:

• Packaging your Shiny App as an Windows desktop app
• Deploying Desktop Apps with R
• A Simple Shiny App for Monitoring Trading Strategies Part II

Basically, you need to get:

• Portable R and
• Portable Chrome or
• Portable Firefox

And follow setup steps outline in the posts.

There is also a BIG question of including / distributing proprietary code / algorithms. It is not possible to hide R code, so you might resolve to using:

• Rcpp to code your proprietary algorithms and compile binaries or
• Rturbo/P to convert your proprietary R algorithms and create Rturbo/P binaries

#Aside If you want to play with Shiny Server on Windows, following is a good start:

• Can i host a shiny app on a windows machine?
• leondutoit/shiny-server-on-ubuntu

And more info for Docker and Vagran:

• Setting up a development environment using Docker and Vagrant
• Docker for Windows
• boot2docker
• boot2docker releases