I'm not a language zealot (most languages/frameworks come with pros and cons) and I use R and the tidyverse quite regularly, but "performant" is not a word I'd associate with the tidyverse. I'd be surprised if it wasn't slower than most alternatives (can't claim to have systematically benchmarked it, still....), even if it's often easier to use and usually "good enough."

Ironically, I find students who rely on the tidyverse to be the most vulnerable to "This isn't working and I'll never be able to figure out why."

Base R is fine. I would much rather not include the tidyverse and all of its transitive dependencies.