Anvil vs Positron

Anvil is an online IDE for building and deploying full-stack web apps with Python. It pairs a drag-and-drop interface designer with client-side and server-side Python, and includes Data Tables, a built-in database backed by Postgres. Apps can be published to Anvil hosting or exported to run on the open-source Anvil App Server. Developers can create HTTP APIs and connect external Python code through Uplink. Built-in user authentication and app email support cover sending and receiving messages. Anvil documentation lists integrations for Google, Microsoft Entra ID, Facebook, Stripe and Tableau, and says Python SDKs can connect other services. Apps adapt to phones and tablets; the FAQ describes them as installable Progressive Web Apps for Android, iPhone and Chromebook, with offline operation. The Free plan includes unlimited apps and cloud hosting, but provides 50,000 Data Table rows and 100 MB of Data Table storage. Anvil says its hosted infrastructure is in London on AWS eu-west-2. It also says its API removes common flaws such as injection, XSS and CSRF.

Positron is a data science IDE for Python and R, available on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Its Data Explorer provides an interactive interface for exploring and manipulating large local or remote datasets. The IDE supports Jupyter notebooks and Quarto for reproducible reports and presentations, and includes a Connections pane for databases and a Catalog Explorer. Listed capabilities also include an integrated debugger, advanced code intelligence, remote development, and Python environment tools. Posit Assistant can draw context from a live Python or R session, including loaded data, plots, and console history. Positron's AI features use a bring-your-own-key model, with users or their organizations paying the selected model provider directly. Posit says it does not track, collect, or store prompts, code, or conversations entered through these features when an external provider is used. It does not support code written or generated in Positron, including AI-generated code. The desktop IDE is free. Publishing to Posit Connect requires a subscription; Positron Pro on Posit Workbench is listed for enterprise governance, scalable compute, SSO, and dedicated support.