Web apps built with Ruby on Rails
97 comments
·January 10, 2025kyrylo
kamikazeturtles
While I like frameworks like Rails and Django, Golang with AI makes me very productive. Especially because of how Golang codebases don't use too many dependencies so an LLM never recommends code that has an old dependency or mismatched version...
I'm just curious, how well does Ruby integrate with AI tools?
two_cents
I don't have a lot of experience with Golang and AI, I think Rails can give you different kind of productivity.
From what I know (please correct me if I am wrong) most people use AI to create scaffolding and automate all boring and repetitive tasks in a project. So code still needs to be written, you just outsource it to AI helper.
In Rails you write less code and concentrate on business logic because everything boring like DAL, authorization, caching is already written and tested in production.
edit: syntax
bb88
A singular data point here, but if I ask MS Copilot to write me a unit test in python/django it will more often get it right the first time than in golang. The golang code tends to reference things that don't exist. These aren't huge codebases either.
kyrylo
I like Golang too, I use it whenever I can.
I haven't done any AI with Ruby, but from what I saw, the ecosystem is lacking support of good libraries.
fchief
It works great with AI tools. Checkout the LangChain or Boxcars gem.
correlator
This is a great point. I often ask LLMs which coding language they are most proficient in, and Python is the most typical response. This has makes me want to write more Python.
hansvm
Keep in mind, LLMs can't introspect. They integrate your prompt with their training data.
If Python is an extremely popular programming language people like to write about using (it is), you'll expect a lot of people to state that Python is their most proficient language and for that to make its way into the training data. When you ask the LLM, you'll get Python as an answer some fraction of the time and other languages some other fraction.
Those answers are orthogonal to how good the LLM actually is though. In the training data, you'd like a sufficiently robust sample of code (which Python should have) without most of the code being terrible (which Python doesn't have in the wild).
Mind you, IME they do better with Python than very new languages, and they do better with Python tooling than whatever maven build garbage you might have to deal with, but that's faint praise.
bb88
I use MS Copilot in python and it's really good. Particularly at writing unit test cases.
Unit tests are a major win for LLMs.
racl101
Certain cities it's like a Rails desert. I'd love to get a job using it but it's slim pickings. It's either .NET or PHP and maybe some Python and maybe some Node most of the time for web dev.
dcdc123
Canvas LMS is built on rails. It is open source, too.
ge96
I wonder if you can scan sites and check for rails. I know if there is an error the dump if visible can tell you it's rails like ActiveRecord
AugurCognito
There exist websites like https://builtwith.com so the answer to your question is yes.
ge96
Right was just thinking why people would want to submit their site to OP
werdnapk
I've used nothing but Rails since about 2004. Of course I've been integrating and playing with various JS frameworks over the same time period, but the only things that's remained consistent is Rails as the base. I've gone through at least 4 or 5 different JS frameworks in that time and that aspect of development has grown rather tiresome.
thatguyagain
Rails 8 made me love Rails again after a few years working with other tools. The new direction is just perfect, specially for solo developers. The 'solid trifecta' in combination with the simplicity of using sqlite3, the new built in auth solution, Kamal... everything, so f*ing good.
dewey
> sqlite3
I know sqlite3 is great, but I've always found it much more annoying to use it on a server for small side projects than just using Postgres where I could just connect to the prod instance from my local machine and run some queries to look at the data. With sqlite I'd always have to sync files, set up volumes, make sure permissions are correct vs. just setting an environment variable to a PG instance.
dhamidi
It's not much different than with Postgres:
ssh your-server sqlite3 /tmp/path/to/your/db.sqlite3
kamal app exec -i --reuse bin/rails consolemarvstazar
From what I understand, the sqlite3 comment was made it context of the Solid libraries. Basically common Redis-backed functionality can now be sqlite3-backed instead.
I do share your preference on using Postgres as the main database. Having that as the main db with sqlite3 used for auxiliary functionality sounds great.
skullone
I've been out of rails for more than a decade, ended up mostly with Django, but I always kinda miss rails. But Django has treated me so well, just wish async and python in general had more legs on this side
kyrylo
We Use Rails uses SQLite, by the way
devKnight
I've always been interested in rails, even though my career has gone the JS/TS route. Think i might finally take the plunge and try to build some random stuff with it. See how far i can get by looking at code examples and asking gpt "how do you do x in rails" etc.
Really love that it seems to just be a complete toolbox, especially for a solo project.
Also seeing more and more rails roles out there, but obviously don't have 5+ years with the framework
LargeWu
There was a period of time around the height of Rails original heyday where the idea of a very opinionated, complete framework such as Rails got a lot of blowback, which gave rise to the Javascript ecosystem and its myriad front-end frameworks.
I think the pendulum is kind of swinging back the other way now. While there are certainly advantages with the Node ecosystem, it always felt very messy to me. Rails language extensions, ORM, testing, and migrations frameworks have never been matched by any javascript libraries. Ruby and Rails have always prioritized quality of life features, which made it a very enjoyable and productive framework.
devKnight
Yeah, i mainly deal with react/next + supabase on a daily basis at work.
And do sometimes think of small apps i could build for fun, but the thought of doing react, again, is tiring in and of itself lol plus the whole setup around getting express running and picking packages.
Rails is ready out of the box, for me to not have to screw around with.
Just love the ruby syntax(along with python, which i am actively learning now with datacamp). Its cleaner, and i can probably do 90% of what i do in react there. Then for the rest throw solid js or svelte, or even just react for specific components.
LordShredda
I think the reason rails has stuck around is because of it being a very opinionated framework and it dictates a method to do almost anything. This allows the docs to be very straightforward, almost as if they were written for the Rails application itself.
I also think the language itself is a big plus. I don't like the reflection system or hot patching being a feature in a language, but rails makes extensive use of it to create it's own domain specific language.
dewey
Can only encourage you, I'm mostly working with Go but all my side projects are with Rails which I've only started a few years ago. It's a lot of fun.
I'm not a big fan of watching tutorials, but more of learning by doing but I signed up for https://gorails.com when I started out and it was very helpful to get an overview.
dlachausse
I’m similarly interested in learning Rails.
Does anyone here have any recommendations for free or at least very cheap Rails hosting for a toy app just for learning purposes? I’m looking for a PaaS offering since I don’t have the time to secure and manage a VPS.
graypegg
You might also want to try Kamal, which Rails is already configured for out of the box.
You'll still be spinning up a VPS, but at least set up and management is done via a very heroku-like interface from your local machine. Just get any VPS that will be accessible via SSH, and `kamal setup` can handle the rest. [1]
The one annoying part right now, is it relies on a docker registry you have to provide. I think they're working on removing that requirement, but you can use the free github container registry until then. It's just for rollbacks AFAIK.
WaxProlix
I haven't used their Rails hosting, but I have liked Fly.io for other PaaS-y things before. Heroku is technically still around.
evantbyrne
Does it really take any more time to secure a VPS than a docker container on a custom runtime for a hobby project? Either way you still have to run software and OS updates.
nimonian
You could probably dockerize it and stick it on render.com
aaronbrethorst
Render doesn’t need a rails app to be dockerized. I have several Rails apps running on it right now.
evolve2k
Happy render customer right here. We’ve got multiple rails apps running on render. Renders tech support team have been very helpful wherever needed also.
Should also point out the recently released Rails 8, has as key features focussed on making rails much easier to deploy to anywhere that supports Docker.
3pt14159
Heroku is decent although I don't like some of the tweaks you can't do with it. For example, setting variables in postgres is neutered.
Syntaf
Cool site! Love seeing what others have built using rails.
I've been working on a membership management platform [1] using Rails + Hotwire Turbo & Stimulus and I can't imagine how long it would have taken me using other frameworks around.
Want a rich text editor? Just use action text. Want document storage? Active storage is easy. Job queues? Mailers? Caching? Integration testing? All easy to do.
I love that Rails is "omakase", once you lean into the ecosystem it's great that most things just... work.
douchescript
What’s the best way to use JavaScript on rails these days?
I’ve been using rails for over 20 years and still love it but the JavaScript story has always been in flux in bad ways. I don’t like the turbo stuff or stimulus. Basically just want to be able to add some nice charts, and some enhancements like confirmation for links. Basically just build admins with it so the caching for partial html just isn’t part of the game. Looked at upgrading to rails 8 now but the javascript in last version of rails was fragmented and complicated, so looking to find a good way to do it in a standard way now, hopefully next version of rail’s doesn’t change everything again.
breckenedge
The fragmentation is more an implication of the ever changing landscape of JS frameworks and build tools than Rails.
For me, Stimulus adds just the right amount of structure over Vanilla JS.
And Turbo/Hotwire feels like building skyscrapers with wood vs. steel.
itsthecourier
just use importmaps
https://guides.rubyonrails.org/working_with_javascript_in_ra...
- Adding npm Packages with importmap-rails To add new packages to your import map-powered application, run the bin/importmap pin command from your terminal:
$ bin/importmap pin react react-dom
Then, import the package into application.js as usual:
import ReactDOM from "react-dom"
douchescript
But how do you integrate and turn on at a specific page/controller view? Look for a specific dom id?
Alifatisk
Rails is truly experiencing a renaissance and after giving it a try, I understand why
gvurrdon
The main application I have to work with now ended up, for various reasons, as a Rails API with a Vue client.
The Rails part has been easy to maintain and adapt to users' frequent changes, the main issues being feature requests for very complicated queries which then end up being slow. Vue has taken up a lot of time with the migration from 2 -> 3 (still not finished).
stux
Rails definitely seems optimized for creating code, but how is it at maintaining code? I've never used it, but it seems like Ruby's dynamic types would make it really challenging to do large refactors. What techniques do rails developers use?
inthebin
Can someone provide a reason for why anyone should be using Rails? I'm always curious why people love context switching between multiple programming languages.
flats
As opposed to using JavaScript on the front end & back end? That benefit of JS has always seemed a bit overrated to me—the context for front-end & server-side JS is pretty darn different, too.
Anyway, Ruby & Rails are such a joy to use that, at least for me, the fact that it’s written in a different language than the one we need in the browser is a non-issue.
to-too-two
1) You love the Ruby programming language.
2) It's battle-tested. Tried and true. Batteries included. Can have a web app with most functionality needed running in minutes.
3) There are more reasons, but there are other good options as well. No reason to use Rails if you're not interested in Ruby.
null
asyx
Is there a reason to use rails over Django? Doesn’t seem like it based on your list.
criddell
Ruby. It's a uniquely expressive language (IMHO).
graywh
> Batteries included.
this is the Python standard library motto
thinkingemote
I used to love context switching between frameworks and languages: Rails was more fun and I felt more happier and creative. Django felt more restrictive but I felt more productive. NodeJS was more chaotic but I felt more powerful.
Today I stick with Ruby and Rails. I am trying to do my context switching in the front-end JS frameworks but I just feel a bit dead doing it at the moment!
aqme28
I really miss using Rails. It is seriously so enjoyable to quickly build stuff with it.
I’ve always wondered who else uses Ruby on Rails besides the usual names like GitHub, Shopify, Basecamp, etc.
Last month, I built a directory of web apps built with the Rails framework.
With Rails 8 released last year, the framework is stronger than ever. Some even say it’s experiencing a renaissance.
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