Lightweight version of R and shiny for efficient app deployment?

Question

Is there any way to make the R + shiny build smaller, so as to make it more light weight when deploying shiny apps? (or plumber API's, or any other R processes for that matter?)

Background

I have been deploying shiny apps in kubernetes and the builds are quite a lot larger than similar apps written in other languages (e.g. python).

I've also deployed some to heroku, and they're also quite large builds (in the hundreds of MB, whereas other similar apps in other languages might only be a few tens of MB).

What I know so far

I know base R is quite large, but packages are the bulk of the build size, so I have reduced those as much as possible by not importing anything unnecessary, and extracting some functions from their packages so as to not have to include the whole thing.

Answer 1

I think leprechaun is the best option (as in easy AND light) out there right now. It's purpose is to be similar to golem, but without making the heavy requirements of golem. (link to the docs https://github.com/devOpifex/leprechaun/tree/master/docs)