shinylaunchR

A cross-platform desktop launchpad for R/Shiny apps. Click a tile and the app opens in its own native window while R runs headless in the background.

Download Get started

shinylaunchR shows a grid of app tiles grouped into three families. It is not an R package — it is an Electron application that manages R as a subprocess, detecting R on your system or downloading a managed copy from CRAN.

Three app families

Packages

A Shiny app shipped as an R package (CRAN or a GitHub repo). You name the package and its launcher function; tiles use the package's real hex logo when it has one.

Shiny apps

Non-package Shiny files — an uploaded .zip, a local folder, a zip URL, a gist, or a GitHub source repo. Staged privately and run with shiny::runApp().

Hosted URLs

A Shiny app already running somewhere (shinyapps.io, Connect, …). Paste the https:// address; nothing is installed.

Install

Download the installer for your platform from the Releases page and run it. The app ships unsigned by default, so your OS may show a first-launch warning you can click past. New here? Read the getting-started guide.

Citation

If you use shinylaunchR in your work, please cite it:

@software{heller_shinylaunchr_2026,
  author  = {Heller, Raban},
  title   = {{shinylaunchR}: A cross-platform desktop launchpad for {R}/{Shiny} apps},
  year    = {2026},
  version = {0.1.0},
  url     = {https://github.com/cttir/shinylaunchR},
  license = {Apache-2.0}
}

License & legal

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 — Copyright © 2026 Raban Heller (ORCID 0000-0001-8006-9742). See NOTICE, third-party licenses, and privacy (no telemetry; all data local).

shinylaunchR is an independent open-source project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Posit Software, PBC (RStudio), the R Foundation, or the maintainers of Shiny. “R”, “RStudio”, “Posit”, and “Shiny” are trademarks of their respective owners.