What are the benefits of using Quarto over RMarkdown?

Question

Quarto is a new open-source scientific and technical publishing system that claims to be the "next generation version of R Markdown from RStudio". I'm an avid RMarkdown user and I have not yet fully understood what are the advantages of using Quarto over RMarkdown. Both seems very similar.

Are there important differences between RMarkdown and Quarto to be aware of?

user_1036500 · Answer

The key differences, and advantages for me, of using qmd instead of rmd include:

removes the bookdown pkg as a dependency in my scientific writing, it has simpler and universal cross-referencing
simpler integration with lua filters (I use them for author affiliation details)
multi-language and multi-engine: Python, R, and JavaScript via integration with Jupyter, Knitr, and Observable.
easy two column (and more) flexible content layouts for displaying images, code, text, tables, plots, anything
Global chunk options set in YAML, rather than a separate setup chunk
Easier to show verbatim chunks, good for writing tutorials and guides
Chunk options as YAML with the special hashpipe #|

Other details I find satisfying:

fully back compatible with Rmd
works well in VS Code, Emacs, etc., it's less bound to RStudio as an IDE

What are the benefits of using Quarto over RMarkdown?

1 Answers