R is the open-source environment for statistics and data visualization — data frames, linear models, ggplot2 charts, and CRAN's package ecosystem. Data scientists, epidemiologists, and quant researchers use it for exploratory analysis, publishing reproducible research, and building Shiny web apps.

R became the lingua franca of academic and open statistical computingAnalyzing data with software — distributions, regression, and visualization in tools like R and Python., rivaling commercial S-PLUS.

It proved a free, extensible stats language could outgrow its university origins and power industry data science.