Uses shiny proxy hosted on a single ARM server with 16 virtual cores and 32 GB of RAM
Most providers charge between €100 and €200 per month for such a server, but they got it for €30
Doubling CPU and RAM roughly doubles the number of concurrent users
Compared to the resource usage of the Shiny apps themselves, ShinyProxy consumes very little CPU and RAM, so it rarely becomes a bottleneck even under heavy load.
ShinyProxy Operator takes care of the ShinyProxy installation process as well as all the required side components, so you don’t have to manage them manually.
Uses Grafana for monitoring
LLM apps
Cloud-based online platforms
Platforms like OpenAI’s GPT4 store and Huggingface Space allow developers to focus on prompt engineering and interaction designing without configuring hardware, environment, and web framework. However, they have the following limitations:
Privacy related to individual or commercial information.
Latency due to remote servers and shared GPU resource pools.
Cost for remote API calls or on-demand servers.
Managed self-hosted applications
Self-hosted applications relying on a managed stack or framework like Ollama+OpenWebUI offer ready-to-use templates for running various LLM applications locally. This solution draws attentions because the models like Llama 3 (8B) model can easily run on a PC with a 16G GPU. While the solution is limited by:
Complexity in setup and maintenance.
Inflexibility due to limited customization.
Custom self-hosted applications
To overcome the limitations of the managed self-hosted solution, an alternative is to create custom self-hosted applications, which use custom-built components across the stack.
The “Total Cost” of ownership (USD/year) covers licensing fees and operating costs for the “Number of Apps” listed in the table.
PaaS means platform-as-a-service, i.e. it is a fully managed system without you having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. This also means less control over the infrastructure, i.e. when it comes to choosing the data region where your app is served from.
Free
Free options can be good for prototyping
shinyapps.io, heroku, Fly.io
Fly.io’s free tier is your best option if you want the apps running 24/7 and under a secured custom domain (none of this is offered for Shinyapp.io and Heroku).
Other options
If you run out of free builds or usage limits, use multiple emails to create multiple free-tier accounts
Build mulitple apps on the same docker image
ShinyProxy
ShinyProxy Operator for Docker takes care of the ShinyProxy installation process as well as all the required side components, so you don’t have to manage them manually.
See Resources for example
Benefits
Open source – no subscription fee
A wide range of Authorization options available (LDAP / Kerberos / SSO / SAML / Open ID / Keycloak / Social Media / Simple (flat file of users & passwords))
Costs
Higher implementation cost
No product support, therefore there is no possibility of SLA guarantees
The additional cost of post-implementation support
Long-term maintenance requiring a large workforce
Shiny Server
On-Prem
Pros - open source
Cons
Must load it on the server
Keep track of security patches
Manage dependencies and harmonize them if you have multiple apps on the same server
Digital Ocean Droplet - $4/month and host the apps with shinyproxy or shinyserver
For light, intermittent usage
Lightbulb provisions, configures and secures your DigitalOcean server so you can publish Shiny and Golem apps from GitHub - without writing deployment scripts or touching the command line.
(2025) The most basic simple configuration is $4/mo but there are other tiers plus the option of customization
“Their support is good regarding SSH and other remote access methods. With Kamatere you will need to set up the server yourself, including installing R, Shiny Server, and any other dependencies your app requires.” (article)
Also need to configure security settings, such as firewalls and HTTPS certificates.
Multiple blogs explain how to use Let’s Encrypt to obtain free SSL certificates and configure them with NGINX or Apache to serve your app securely from a website
Much better than ShinyProxy for scaling up even though ShinyProxy is free (article)
Benefits
Comes with great integration with R and Python and comes with a lot more than just hosting Shiny apps
Ability to deploy R/Python applications, R/Python API, RMarkdown reports that regenerate automatically, etc.
Worth it if you’re working with a team and delivering more than shiny apps (e.g. reports, cron jobs, etc.)
Stability with Software licensing and Standard Software Support from Posit included
Lower implementation costs
Easier configuration and deployment of dashboard versions
Authorization is included in the Posit Connect Subscription, with a wide range of options to choose from: (LDAP and Active Directory / SAML / OAuth 2.0 using Google Apps accounts / PAM / Proxied Authentication / SLA)
Easier maintenance in production
Option to add Posit Workbench and Package Manager
Automatic scaling – no need to manually trigger new processes
An industry standard by Fortune 500 companies working with R
Admin panel to manage users and monitor the logs and machine
Costs
A yearly Posit Connect subscription starts at $14,995/year (USD)
