The Rocker Images: choosing a container
The rocker project provides a collection of containers suited for different needs. find a base image to extend or images with popular software and optimized libraries pre-installed. Get the latest version or a reproducibly fixed environment.
The versioned stack
This stack builds on stable Debian releases (debian:8 for versions < 3.4.1, debian:9 after). Images in this stack accept a version tag specifying which version of R is desired, e.g. rocker/rstudio:3.4.0 for R 3.4.0. Version-tagged images are designed to be stable, consistently providing the same versions of all software (R, R packages, system libraries) rather than the latest available (though Debian system libraries will still recieve any security patches.) Omit the tag or specify :latest to always recieve the latest (nightly build) versions, or :devel for an image running on the current development (pre-release) version of R. This is a linear stack, with each image extending the previous one.
The base stack
This stack builds on debian:testing and debian:unstable. This is a branched stack, with all other images extending r-base. Use this stack if you want access to the latest versions of system libraries and compilers through apt-get.