Why I build web apps with Ruby on Rails

How I got to Rails

I met Ruby before I met Rails, and it was the language that won me over first. Ruby was designed to be pleasant to read and write: the code states its intent with little ceremony, and that changes how you think about a problem.

When I started using Rails, I found a framework that carries that same philosophy through the whole of web development. Instead of assembling an application from dozens of parts, I had a clear path from the first commit to production. That combination of language and framework is what made me choose Rails, and it is what keeps me here.

Why I chose Rails

The reasons that tipped the decision, and that still hold today:

• Ruby, a language written for people

  Ruby optimizes for programmer happiness. Readable code is maintainable code, and Rails is the best expression of that on the web.

• Convention over configuration

  Rails has already made the structural decisions for me. I spend my energy on business rules, not on deciding where each file goes.

• Everything I need to ship

  Active Record, migrations, jobs, mail, uploads, WebSockets, Hotwire and authentication come with the framework and work well together.

• Speed without shortcuts

  I can take an idea to production fast, alone or in a small team, without giving up quality or long-term maintainability.

• A testing culture

  Testing is part of the framework from day one: unit, integration and system tests, ready to use on the first commit.

• Mature, stable, still evolving

  The framework is more than twenty years old. Each release brings real progress, such as Solid Queue, Solid Cache and Kamal, without breaking what already works.

• An ecosystem I can trust

  For almost every problem there is a well-established, maintained, documented gem. I build on what the community has already validated.

• A generous community

  The Ruby and Rails community, in Brazil and worldwide, shares knowledge openly. A good part of what I know came from it.

How I use Rails day to day

Rails is the foundation for most of my work as a software engineer:

• APIs and integrations with external services, with clear, versioned contracts
• data modeling and business rules with Active Record and PostgreSQL
• background processing with jobs, queues and schedules
• fast, simple interfaces with Hotwire, Turbo and Stimulus, without a heavy SPA
• deploying and operating in the cloud, especially AWS, with observability from the start
• modernizing legacy systems and safely migrating them to current Rails versions
• AI features inside products, integrated into the application's normal flow

A default, not a dogma

Rails is my starting point, not an absolute rule. Some problems call for other tools, and I use them when they make sense.

But when the job is a real web application, with users, data and business rules that will evolve for years, Rails is where I start. It is the choice that has proven right most often in my experience.