Deploying Your Application

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Platform Cost Notes
Posit Connect Cloud Free tier Easiest, GitHub-based deploy
Render.com Free tier PaaS managed web service deployment
shinyapps.io Free tier Deprecated - Move to Posit Cloud after 2026
Posit Connect (self-hosted) Paid Enterprise, on-prem
Shinylive Free Runs entirely in the browser (no server)

requirements.txt is required

Posit Connect Cloud installs packages from requirements.txt before running your app.

requirements.txt
shiny
palmerpenguins
plotnine
pandas

If a package isn’t listed, the deployed app will crash with an ImportError.

Deploy to Posit Connect Cloud

  1. Go to https://connect.posit.cloud and sign in with GitHub
  2. Click New Content β†’ Import from GitHub
  3. Select your repository and branch
  4. Set the Entry point to your app.py
  5. Click Deploy

That’s it. Posit Connect Cloud handles the environment.

Deploy with the publish button

In Positron or VS Code with the Shiny extension:

  1. Open your app.py
  2. Click the Publish button in the editor toolbar
  3. Follow the prompts to connect your account

Updating a deployed app

Push to the connected branch, and Connect Cloud redeploys automatically.

Or click Redeploy in the Connect Cloud dashboard.

Shinylive: no server required

Compile your app to WebAssembly and host it as a static site:

shinylive export app/ site/

Limitations:

  • No file I/O, no database connections
  • Package support is limited to what Pyodide supports
  • Startup is slower (downloads Python + packages to browser)

Great for: demos, tutorials, sharing one-off apps.

Exercise

See exercise: Deploy Your App.