Posit with Snowflake: A Sweet Spot for Data Scientists

We announced the Posit Workbench Native App on Snowflake last year, and the response has been fantastic. It confirms what we already knew: bringing Posit’s best-in-class data science tools directly into the Snowflake ecosystem unlocks tremendous value. With the Posit Workbench Native App, you can do Python or R development directly alongside your data within Snowflake’s secure environment. 

Since then, we’ve brought more tools into the Snowflake ecosystem, with more to come. Curious? This post will walk you through the core benefits of using Posit with Snowflake and give you a sneak peek at exciting new developments we’ll be showcasing at the Snowflake Summit next month. First, let’s look at how you can use Posit with Snowflake today.

Building a powerful ecosystem for data science

Our goal at Posit has always been to make it seamless for data scientists to turn data into insights, wherever that data lives. Snowflake excels at securely storing data and making data and AI models available. Posit provides the premier environment for analyzing that data and building applications with R and Python. Together, Posit and Snowflake form a powerful, end-to-end ecosystem.

There are three ways you can use Posit alongside Snowflake:

1. Connected Apps: This is the foundational level. Regardless of where you host Posit Workbench or Posit Connect, you can securely access your Snowflake data from R or Python, using Posit’s professional drivers, ODBC Connections, or the Snowflake Python Connector. This makes it easy to query and use data stored in Snowflake from your favorite IDE or data viz framework. You can learn more about using our professional drivers here or the odbc R package here.



2. Open Source Support: We’ve developed open-source packages specifically designed to enhance your Snowflake workflows. Packages like dbplyr allow you to write familiar dplyr code in R that gets translated into SQL for execution directly within Snowflake. More recently, orbital lets you translate R models (specifically from the tidymodels framework) into native SQL, allowing predictions to run blazing fast inside Snowflake. The Python version of orbital does the same thing for Scikit-Learn models.  And Posit’s open source AI tools like gander, chores, chatlas, and querychat do something special when used from within Snowflake (in the Native app, see below): they integrate with Snowflake Cortex to bring secure, context-aware AI assistance directly into your IDE.



3. Native Apps: This is the deepest level of integration. The Posit Workbench Native App runs directly within your Snowflake account using Snowpark Container Services. This means the tools your data scientists love – RStudio, VS Code, Jupyter – run entirely within your Snowflake account, right next to your data, inheriting Snowflake’s security, roles, and governance. Installation is streamlined for admins, and data scientists get immediate, secure access without data ever leaving the Snowflake environment. We even pre-package helpful open-source tools like gander, ellmer, and chores right into the Native App.

Putting Posit inside the Snowflake ecosystem has been a game changer. Let’s look at why.

Why data science teams are leveraging Posit Workbench natively on Snowflake

Running Posit Workbench as a Native App isn’t just about convenience; it’s about fundamentally changing how data science teams operate, delivering tangible benefits across the board. Let’s group these into three themes:

Faster Time to Value:

• Rapid Setup: Forget lengthy installation and configuration processes. Admins can get the Posit Workbench Native App up and running for their entire team in minutes, not weeks, including a straightforward way to configure OAuth, by deploying the app directly from the Snowflake Marketplace and running a simple install script. 
• Out-of-the-Box Functionality: Pre-packaged open-source libraries like ellmer, gander, and chores mean your team can immediately start leveraging tools for things like AI-assisted coding and analysis without extra setup.  
• Simplified Procurement: You can acquire Posit Workbench through the Snowflake Marketplace via a private listing and potentially leverage your existing Snowflake capacity commitment drawdown, bypassing traditional procurement hurdles.

Reduced Management Overhead:

• Managed Infrastructure: Because the Native App runs on Snowpark Container Services, the underlying infrastructure is managed by Snowflake, significantly reducing the burden on your IT and platform teams.  
• Managed Software & Upgrades: Posit manages the Workbench software within the Native App, including automatic upgrades. You get the latest features and security updates without the operational lift.  
• Leverage Snowflake Security: Inherit Snowflake’s robust, enterprise-grade security, governance, and access controls automatically. Data access is managed through Snowflake roles, ensuring users only see what they’re permitted to see.  

Accelerated Productivity and Iteration:

• Seamless Data Access: Workbench automatically manages Snowflake credentials via OAuth. Once logged into Snowflake and the Workbench Native App, data scientists can connect to data using simple commands (like DBI::dbConnect(odbc::snowflake()) in R or snowflake.connector.connect() in Python) without needing to handle tokens or passwords.  
• AI-Powered Acceleration: Use pre-packaged tools like gander and chores with Snowflake Cortex for secure, in-IDE AI assistance that understands your code and data context, speeding up development and reducing boilerplate tasks. AI will suggest code that just works, with all of the correct table and column names, and it can make changes across your project files automatically for you. Read more here.
• Faster Model Execution with Orbital: Convert tidymodels workflows (including preprocessing) into SQL using orbital. Run real-time predictions directly and rapidly within Snowflake, eliminating data movement and leveraging Snowflake’s compute power. See a demo here.
• Performance Boost: Co-locating the development environment (Workbench) with the data (Snowflake) minimizes latency and maximizes performance, especially for data-intensive tasks.  
• (Coming Soon!) One-Click Development to Deployment: Imagine seamlessly moving from analysis and model building in Workbench to deploying interactive applications or APIs directly within Snowflake using Posit Connect. Stay tuned!

Remember how we said these benefits can fundamentally change how data science teams operate? Here are two examples of what that can look like in real life.

How organizations are benefiting from Posit Workbench Native App on Snowflake

It’s always powerful to see how these capabilities translate into real-world impact. While we can’t share all the specifics publicly, we’re seeing organizations achieve significant results:

• The Posit Workbench Native App on Snowflake is the destination of choice for a well-known travel company that provides Machine Learning powered insights for its partners, such as theme parks and vacation spots. By combining Posit’s development interface with the computing power of Snowflake, they were able to reduce model execution time from a couple of days to a couple of hours, and model scoring (inference) time from a couple of hours to mere seconds, opening the door for on demand, real time model scoring.
• When it is time to analyze data, the Posit Workbench Native App is the preferred IDE provider for a major league baseball team. Workbench is fast in any incarnation, but when integrated with Snowpark Container Services, it pitches up pre-configured computing environments in seconds, not minutes, eliminating friction that can derail discovery and iteration.

The common themes? Teams are getting insights faster, reducing IT friction, strengthening their security posture, and empowering data scientists to focus on delivering value, not wrestling with infrastructure and access.

What’s new and what’s next

We launched the Posit Workbench Native App on Snowflake (AWS) earlier this year, and we haven’t stopped innovating. Since the initial launch, we’ve delivered:  

• Workbench on Azure, bringing the same Native App experience to Snowflake deployments on Microsoft Azure.
• Multi-App Install, making it easy to install multiple Posit Workbench Native Apps to let different teams work in isolated Workbench environments. 
• Cortex-Powered Data Science: Integrating tools like gander and chores for secure, in-Snowflake AI assistance using Snowflake Cortex.  

And we’re just getting started! We’re actively working on:

• Private Link Support, leveraging your existing private link network architecture to provide direct, private access to Workbench, and a secure, streamlined environment for your data analysis and development activities.
• Posit Connect as a Native App (Coming Soon): Deploy Posit Connect natively within Snowflake for seamless, secure publishing and sharing of data products, leveraging Snowflake’s governance.  
• Positron in Posit Workbench Native App (Coming Soon): Access the next-generation Positron IDE directly within the Native App environment.

Discover the power of native apps at our booth!

Heading to Snowflake Summit?  At the Summit, we’ll be demonstrating how your data scientists can easily build and host custom AI tools with Posit and Snowflake. We will use the Gen AI-powered Positron assistant to explore data and build a Shiny app that contains an AI chatbot for users to interact with. The chatbot doesn’t just chat, it updates the rest of the app, navigating your users to the insights they are looking for. We will finish up by publishing the Shiny app securely within Snowflake via one-click publishing to the new Posit Connect Native app.

We’d love to connect! Swing by the Posit booth, number 1903, to:

• See live demos of Posit Workbench and the upcoming Posit Connect Native Apps.
• Dive deep into specific use cases like AI-assisted development and orbital for in-database scoring.  
• Chat with our experts about how Posit and Snowflake can accelerate your data science initiatives.
• Get your specific questions answered.

Conclusion: The future is native

The Posit Workbench Native App for Snowflake represents a significant leap forward, offering unparalleled trust, ease of use, and performance for data science teams. By bringing Posit’s powerful tools directly into the Snowflake Data Cloud, we’re enabling organizations to:  

• Accelerate Time-to-Value: Get started faster and bypass procurement hurdles.  
• Reduce Operational Burden: Leverage managed infrastructure and software.  
• Enhance Security & Governance: Seamlessly inherit Snowflake’s robust controls.  
• Boost Data Science Productivity: Streamline data access, leverage AI assistance, and improve performance.  

Ready to experience the power of native data science on Snowflake?

• Visit Posit at Booth 1903 at Snowflake Summit!
• Attend our session at Snowflake Summit, Next-gen Data Science: Redefining Data Science with Posit and Snowflake.
• Join us for Data & Drinks during the Snowflake Summit.
• Learn more about the Posit Workbench Native App for Snowflake and book a meeting with our team.

We can’t wait to show you what’s possible when Posit and Snowflake work together.