lapply returns a list of the same length as X, each element of which is the result of applying FUN to the corresponding element of X.

sapply is a “user-friendly” version of lapply by default returning a vector or matrix if appropriate.

replicate is a wrapper for the common use of sapply for repeated evaluation of an expression (which will usually involve random number generation).

Usage
lapply(X, FUN, ...)

sapply(X, FUN, ..., simplify = TRUE, USE.NAMES = TRUE)

replicate(n, expr, simplify = TRUE)