Should you use Ruby on Rails in 2024?

It’s great to see a resurgence of the framework responsible for so much internet goodness related to SaaS and web applications. It inspired me to make a somewhat biased but fair round-up of reasons to consider Ruby on Rails in 2024.
This post's ultimate TL; DR is that now is as good a time as any to use Ruby on Rails. I’ve fallen in love with the framework and am here to present reasons that might make you consider adopting it in 2024.
Timestamps:
00:19 - What is Ruby on Rails?
01:26 - 10x developer productivity
02:09 - Prototype rapidly
02:59 - Ruby on Rails CAN scale
03:35 - Job opportunities
04:53 - Cross-platform compatibility
05:38 - ActiveRecord ❤️
06:40 - Built-in Testing Frameworks
07:32 - Straight-forward RESTful API development
08:15 - Ruby ❤️
09:15 - Strong open source community
10:17 - Agility and Flexibility
11:02 - Integration with front-end frameworks
11:43 - Growing solutions for easier UI/UX design (shameless plug for railsui.com 🙃)
13:25 - Recap
======
👋 I'm Andy Leverenz, a passionate product designer and developer. I love creating and sharing my knowledge through design, coding, and writing. Join me on my journey by checking out my blog, Web-Crunch (webcrunch.com), where I publish tutorials, articles, and the occasional vlog about design and development.
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[@bradchellingworth5973]

Rails is still the best web framework Ive ever used and I continue to use it each and every day. The speed of development, the ease of debugging, and the fact that you can look at a project you built 10 years ago and it s still pretty much the same fundamentals today. This is a huge factor given how often things change with web frameworks these days.

[@jeromesimms]

If you know about Django, how would you say that Django compares to Ruby on Rails?

[@kurtm9744]

@@jeromesimmsI’ve built professional apps in both Django and Rails. Django benefits from the hype of Python but Ruby is such a similar language that it’s very easy for Python developers to learn. it’s much faster to develop in Rails than it is in Django.

[@DevlogBill]

Is Rails good at creating Restful API's? I am thinking about trying it out rails as the backend for my React project. Just curious to see how that works? Also considering maybe GO. Trying to figure out which would be the quickest in creating my personal project.

[@nitrosnowbs]

i had to use node for a couple of years now and i have to say that coming back to rails is such a joy! i am so much more productive! :)

[@Webcrunch]

Great to hear!

[@thiagomrvieira]

Great video. I also come from the PHP world with Laravel, and having studied Rails quite a bit, I can see many similarities between both ecosystems. I have around 8 years of experience with PHP, and in recent years, I've been flirting with Rails. However, as you mentioned, many Rails developer positions require a bit more experience with the ecosystem. I can indeed write a REST API in Rails with testing and good practices overall, but I feel that my stronger foundation with PHP often weighs more heavily when applying for Rails positions. Anyway... In the meantime, I'll continue studying and hope to transition to Rails in the coming months.

[@NinjaBranDizzzle]

Much love! Thanks for your time!

[@franciscobrito1243]

Good video! I started learning Rails eight months ago, it is a very broad framework so the learning curve was steep for me. But it didn't take me long to love it, it helps you a lot to generate quality and robust code, personally I think there is going to be a renaissance of companies using Rails in the coming years.

[@Webcrunch]

Totally agree. I see it already happening.

[@formigarafa]

I've forgot to ask this question before 2024… again... since... I don't know, years. And no regrets. I honestly have the theory that Rails will never become popular because you just don't need many developers to do the job with Rails. It is just too productive.

[@FabrizioAzzarri]

Absolutely Yes

[@iamjustine1]

thanks for this man! more videos

[@Webcrunch]

You got it!

[@dencam]

Yes, you should use now more than ever.

[@karlsour500]

great video. i was learning rails but in my country jobs opportunity with rails is impossible. but maybe searching a remote job i can work with rails

[@Webcrunch]

Definitely a lot of remote roles out there. Right now things are wild but as economic conditions improve over time (hopefully) more opportunities will show up.

[@Ari-lv8nc]

Same , I'm in the middle east and it's almost impossible to find a company that hires for rails positions , mostly because you can't people who know railsso I'm skipping learning it , I'm not going to risk it so i found an alternative to rails/hotwire which is adonis.js for backend and htmx for server reactivity plus alpine.js for client side reactivity 🙂 but i do wish to try rails and get a job with it

[@trevordev555]

.NET developer who has started working with Ruby and Rails full-time now its all a bit strange to me but what is obvious is just how mature it is even now with dotnet core tooling the .NET eco system doesn't have the mature feeling of tooling and web frameworks but what has impressed me the most is the passionate community Ruby/Rails developers generally seem much happier :-)

[@Webcrunch]

It's definitely a joy to work with in my opinion. I think that's by design. I'll refer back to the doctrine often and find it resonates with my own views a lot rubyonrails.org/doctrine

[@mistert1628]

​@Webcrunch I watched DHH's documentary such an inspiring guy I can see how and why the Rails community is what is today.

[@rpf23543]

For sure! Yes! I’m tired of Devs thinking they always have to start a new trend and follow it. Like, AI pops up and every KZbinr is going to make a video about if and how we will be replaced. Ruby and Rails is more up to date as ever.

[@waishnavdeore]

Great video man, Could you please make video/blog on full text search functionality using postgresql tsvector datatype?

[@Webcrunch]

Thanks! Will try for that.

[@sujit_webdev]

Thanks for this helpful video! I am a React dev and absolutely hate working with it now. I have a feeling I would never be a good web dev with React and it is better that I switch to something else. I want to ask how can we have good UI components in Rails like we have Material UI in React ?

[@Webcrunch]

It's still early on the UI front. I'd argue React has Rails beat right now in terms of UI components. I'm working on Rails UI (railsui.com) right now to help address this but there's been a surgence of other UI solutions for rails out there as well.

[@sujit_webdev]

@@Webcrunch Thanks for your valuable response! I will follow railsUI updates and wish this a success

[@slimakfoto]

Yes, you should. 😊

[@noisycarlos]

I actually had better luck installing rails in my Windows machines than in my Macs for whatever reason. And that's not even using the Linux subsystem, just straight Windows.

[@DevlogBill]

I am really trying to stay away from JavaScript for the backend. I've been considering Ruby on Rails for a React project. How good is Ruby when it comes to creating a Restful API? Just curious to see how quickly you can create one?

[@Webcrunch]

Rails is great for APIs. You can even create an API version when scaffolding a new app which ignores the view layer. This option is designed for apps that just want the backend and you bring your own frontend with React or similar.

[@DevlogBill]

@@Webcrunch Thanks Webcrunch I will soon try out Rails to see the developer experience is for me. I heard story about starting a brand new project can be painful but I also heard once you pass this step that things are much easier. I will what my experience will be for me thanks once again.

[@freaklore]

RoR is solid there are others like Phoenix with Elixir and Trongate with PHP.

[@Webcrunch]

Really want to give Phoenix a go soon!

[@someonewhowantedtobeahero3206]

I am trying to learn it at my job but my goodness is the Ruby syntax difficult to read compared to TS/Java. Too much abstraction.

[@Webcrunch]

It's a very loose language! Definitely pros and cons.

[@bloqDev]

Yes, you should

[@MikesMidnightWhispers]

as a beginner. rails has made crud inCRUDbly easy. so far nothing has come this far.

[@Webcrunch]

InCRUDible!

[@slavapol-v1553]

It is time to switch to Phoenix

[@Webcrunch]

Sell me on it. I'm intrigued but haven't had the time to dive in.

[@jarnalyrkar]

Come to Laravel, we have Lamborghinis!

[@Webcrunch]

😅🔥

[@et_matrix]

Why Laravel when there is Lucky from Crystal?

[@Webcrunch]

Lucky looks great. I'll have to give it a go.

[@et_matrix]

@@Webcrunch It's not a new technology for Rails devs. I am also learning it. Give it a try!. You won't regret

[@reynolrodriguez4982]

We have paganis

[@anilaeus]

Honestly Laravel is better than rails on most part. First party support and available packages is really nailing it.

[@rukasu-se]

You might be right ! But the Ruby language is just so clean, it's hard to go back to PHP.

[@Webcrunch]

Laravel's ecosystem is great for sure. Ruby as a language keeps me hooked with the Rails side. I'm predicting Rails catches up here soon enough.

[@maxralph01]

Fun fact: Laravel was inspired by Ruby on Rails. But the copy (Laravel) is now better than the original (Ruby on Rails).