R Shiny, a package intended to make development of web-based applications simple, started gaining traction since it was introduced in around 2012-2013. In general, R developers tend not to be very frontend development savvy as their main areas of work would be related to statistics or similar disciplines.

As data science, as a profession and a mainstream activity became popular, the need to create sophisticated web-based applications became necessary as a means of delivering results to end users in a dynamic environment.

JavaScript, which had all but lost its original appeal, made a surprise comeback and soon enough the web world was abuzz with the release of various leading JavaScript packages for web development and visualization, such as D3, Angular, Ember, and others ever since 2010-2011.

But these were mostly used by seasoned JavaScript developers, few of whom were also proficient in R. Developing a solution that would help bridge the gap between JavaScript web-based application development and R programming became a necessity for R developers to showcase and share their work with a broader audience.