Why Choose Ruby on Rails for Your Web App? Our Pros & Cons

Ruby on Rails was designed with programmer happiness in mind. The creators recognised the importance of keeping programmers happy, making it one of the main principles behind Rails.

Pros

1. Best Industry Standards

Ruby on Rails is a gold standard for other frameworks. Its design principles and best practices have been widely adopted and recognised by developers worldwide. By adhering to Rails' pattern of convention-over-configuration, developers benefit from a framework that promotes clean code, scalability, security, and maintainability.

2. Rapid Development

DHH made Rails famous with his “How to build a blog in 15 minutes” video. Rails emphasises productivity and quick prototyping, providing developers with built-in tools, libraries, and generators that speed up the development process.

3. Rich Ecosystem & Community

Rails has a vibrant ecosystem with a vast number of community-contributed gems. These gems can be easily added to projects, saving developers time and effort in building common functionalities. Making it even easier to integrate with other APIs, tools and technologies.

Cons

1. Performance Optimisation

In some cases, Ruby on Rails may face performance challenges when handling high-traffic or computationally intensive tasks. However, these challenges can be effectively addressed with proper optimisation techniques and caching strategies. Shopify one of the worlds larges e-commerce platform uses Rails after all.

2. Convention Constraints

Rails follows a convention-over-configuration approach, deviating from these conventions may sometimes slow down development. Using the Rails conventions is not a requirement of the framework though. Following conventions helps maintain consistency and promotes collaborative development.

3. Upgrade and Compatibility

As Rails evolves, frequent updates and changes might introduce compatibility issues with older codebases or dependencies. Careful planning and testing during upgrades are necessary to ensure a smooth transition.

Conclusion

Ruby on Rails is an excellent choice for web development because it emphasises productivity, rapid prototyping, and developer happiness. With a rich ecosystem and active community, it's easy to integrate new features and accelerate the development process.

However, it's essential to remember that performance optimisation and convention constraints may pose some challenges, and careful planning and testing are necessary to ensure smooth upgrades and compatibility with dependencies.

Martin Dick

Co-Founder, mmtm

Considering Rails for your web application?

We've spent the last 10+ years building, improving and scaling Ruby on Rails applications, supporting products used by hundreds of thousands of users.

If you're weighing up Rails against other frameworks, planning a new product, or checking whether your current app is still on the right technical footing, I'd be happy to share some ideas!

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Ruby on Rails a good choice for a new web app?

Yes! Ruby on Rails can be a very good choice for a new web app, especially when speed, structure and long-term maintainability matter. It works well for SaaS products, internal systems, booking platforms, dashboards, marketplaces and customer portals where the product needs to launch quickly and keep improving over time.

Can a Ruby on Rails app scale?

Yes, a Ruby on Rails app can scale! But scaling is never just about the framework. Architecture, database design, caching, background jobs, hosting, monitoring and release process all matter. A well-built Rails application can support serious growth while staying practical to maintain.