Ruby on Rails, often simply called Rails, is one of the most popular web development frameworks in the world. It powers hundreds of thousands of websites and applications, from small side projects to massive platforms used by millions. Rails has been the framework of choice for many startups and tech companies over the last two decades due to how much it simplifies and accelerates the process of building modern, database-backed web applications.
In this in-depth guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about Ruby on Rails, including what it is, how it works, why it‘s so popular and powerful, and how you can get started using it to build your own web applications. By the end, you‘ll have a solid understanding of this robust framework and the role it can play in your web development projects.
What is Ruby on Rails?
At its core, Ruby on Rails is a web development framework written in the Ruby programming language. It was created by David Heinemeier Hansson and first released as open source in 2004. Rails is a full-stack framework, meaning it provides all the tools and structure needed for database management, web service, and user interface on the web.
As a framework, Rails provides developers a foundation and set of conventions for building web applications. Instead of having to write everything from scratch, Rails includes a collection of libraries, tools, and best practices baked in to make development faster and easier. It embraces an opinionated, "convention over configuration" approach that allows developers to be productive and build high-quality applications by following Rails‘ established standards and patterns.
Rails is organized around the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern, a way of structuring applications to keep code modular, maintainable, and easier to understand. In an MVC architecture:
- Models represent the data and business logic
- Views display information to the user
- Controllers handle requests and manage flow between models and views
By separating responsibilities this way, MVC-based frameworks like Rails keep your code organized as your application grows in size and complexity. Rather than hav a single file containing everything, you break your app into separate entities with clear roles.
A Brief History of Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails began as a framework extracted from Basecamp, the popular project management tool built by Hansson and his team at web design company 37signals (now Basecamp). After building and launching Basecamp in 2004, they decided to release the homegrown framework they used as an open source project.
Rails quickly caught on with early adopters in the Ruby community and beyond. Developers were drawn to its simplicity, expressiveness, and how it made many common web development tasks easier. The release of Rails coincided with the rise of Web 2.0, a trend toward more dynamic, interactive websites that relied heavily on databases and web services on the backend. Rails was well-suited for this new landscape.
Other frameworks for languages like PHP and Python existed at the time, but Rails stood out for its integrated testing tools, simple configuration based on sensible defaults, and seamless database migrations. It also had a strong emphasis on agile development methodologies like test-driven development (TDD) and getting a minimum viable product launched as quickly as possible.
As Rails matured and added features over the years, it became the go-to choice for many startups and new web projects. Some of the most well-known websites and applications built with Rails over the years include:
- Shopify
- Twitch
- Airbnb
- GitHub
- Basecamp
- Hulu
- SoundCloud
- Zendesk
- Square
Collectively, hundreds of thousands of applications have been built with Rails since its inception. It remains one of the most popular web frameworks today with a large, active community supporting it.
The Advantages of Ruby on Rails
Why has Rails been so popular and successful over the past two decades? There are several key reasons:
Speed of Development
One of the biggest benefits of Rails is how much it reduces the time and effort needed to go from idea to working application. By providing developers a foundation to build on, it eliminates much of the repetitive boilerplate code found in most web projects. Common features like user authentication, form validation, and database queries can be added quickly. Developers can focus more on the actual business logic unique to their application.
Convention Over Configuration
A huge part of what makes Rails so powerful is its adherence to the "convention over configuration" paradigm. What this means is that Rails makes assumptions about what the best, most common way to do things is and automatically uses those conventions.
For example, let‘s say you have a database table called "users" that stores your user information. In Rails, you don‘t have to explicitly tell it that the corresponding model should be named "User"—it assumes that by default based on its naming conventions. Similarly, it knows a controller for those users should be named "UsersController" and the views should be in a "views/users" directory. While you can customize these if needed, 99% of the time the Rails conventions will be all you need.
This means there‘s very little configuration and setup needed for most applications. You don‘t have to waste time configuring everything manually or wiring up communication between all the different components. It‘s all handled based on smart, sensible defaults.
Massive Ecosystem and Community
As one of the most popular web frameworks for the past two decades, Rails benefits from a massive ecosystem of tools, libraries, and educational resources built up around it. Virtually anything you need to add to a web application has already been built and shared by the Rails community, from authentication to payment processing to PDF generation. These libraries (called gems in Ruby parlance) can be easily added to your application to add new functionality quickly.
There are also extensive learning resources available for Rails, including tutorials, courses, books, documentation, and Q&A sites. Rails has always prioritized making the framework friendly to newcomers. The official Rails guides are some of the best framework documentation around.
Scalability
While Rails is sometimes thought of as a framework for simple applications, it‘s more than capable of powering large, high-traffic websites when deployed and scaled correctly. Twitter, Shopify, and Airbnb are all examples of massive platforms running on Rails. Its MVC architecture keeps applications maintainable as they grow and Rails provides several tools for optimizing and monitoring performance at scale.
Getting Started with Ruby on Rails
Now that you have an overview of what Ruby on Rails is and why it‘s so popular and powerful, let‘s look at how you can start using it for your own web development projects. Fortunately, getting up and running with Rails is quick and easy.
Installing Ruby and Rails
Before you can use Rails, you need to have Ruby installed on your machine. You can install Ruby in several ways, including using a version manager like rbenv or RVM to manage and switch between different Ruby versions on the same machine.
Once you have Ruby installed, installing Rails is as simple as running a single command using Ruby‘s gem package manager:
$ gem install rails
This will download and install the latest version of Rails along with all its dependencies. You can verify your Rails installation by running:
$ rails --version
Creating a New Rails Application
With Rails installed, you can quickly generate the scaffolding for a new Rails application using the "rails new" command followed by your application name:
$ rails new my_app
This will create a new directory for your application with a standard set of files and subdirectories representing the different parts of a Rails project (app, config, db, etc.).
Running a Local Development Server
To see your new Rails application in action, navigate into the directory and start a local development server with the "rails server" command:
$ cd my_app
$ rails server
You can then open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost:3000 to see the default Rails welcome page for new applications.
Generating Models and Controllers
Rails provides generator scripts for quickly creating new models, controllers, and database migrations. For example, to create a new "post" model with a title and body field, you can run:
$ rails generate model Post title:string body:text
This will create a new model file in app/models/post.rb, a database migration in db/migrate, and a unit test file in test/models/post_test.rb.
Similarly, to generate a controller for posts with the common RESTful actions:
$ rails generate controller Posts index show new edit
This creates a PostsController class in app/controllers/posts_controller.rb along with view templates for each action and updates the routes file in config/routes.rb.
While these generators can save time, it‘s important to understand the underlying code they produce. Many Rails developers prefer to write some or all of this boilerplate code themselves as they gain experience to have more control over their application.
Adding Gems for Additional Functionality
To add new features to your Rails application, you can take advantage of the vast collection of third-party Ruby libraries available, called gems. Popular gems add things like user authentication, authorization, file uploads, full-text search, pagination, and much more.
To add a gem to your application, include it in your Gemfile (which lists your app‘s dependencies) and run "bundle install." For example, to add the Devise authentication gem:
# Gemfile
gem ‘devise‘
$ bundle install
You can then follow the gem‘s documentation to integrate it into your application. Many gems include generators for creating the necessary configuration files and database migrations.
Deploying a Rails Application to Production
Once your Rails application is ready to share with the world, you need to deploy it to a production web server. There are many hosting options available depending on your needs and budget, from simple services like Heroku to more flexible options like AWS, DigitalOcean, and Linode that give you full control over your infrastructure.
The key components you need for deploying a production Rails application are:
- A Ruby installation on your server
- A web application server like Puma or Unicorn
- A reverse proxy like Nginx to handle requests
- A process monitor like Systemd or Monit to keep your application running
- A database for your application data (PostgreSQL is most common with Rails)
You also need to configure your application for the production environment, including settings for caching, asset compilation, secret key base for encrypted cookies, and more. Rails keeps production-specific settings in config/environments/production.rb.
Deployment can be one of the trickier aspects of Rails development, especially for those coming from a shared hosting environment in PHP. Fortunately, there are tools like Capistrano that can automate much of the process and abstract some of the system administration complexity.
Learning More About Ruby on Rails
This guide provides a high-level overview of Ruby on Rails, but there‘s much more to learn to become truly proficient with the framework. Some recommended resources for going further with Rails include:
- The official Ruby on Rails guides (https://guides.rubyonrails.org/)
- The Ruby on Rails Tutorial book by Michael Hartl (https://www.railstutorial.org/book)
- The Odin Project curriculum (https://www.theodinproject.com/paths/full-stack-ruby-on-rails)
- GoRails screencasts (https://gorails.com/)
- Drifting Ruby screencasts (https://www.driftingruby.com/)
- RailsCasts archives (http://railscasts.com/)
You‘ll also want to get familiar with the larger Ruby ecosystem, including tools like Bundler for dependency management, testing frameworks like RSpec and Minitest, version control with Git, and the various Ruby implementations (MRI, JRuby, Rubinius, TruffleRuby).
Finally, one of the best ways to learn is to get involved with the Rails community. Attend a local Ruby meetup, ask questions in the Ruby on Rails Talk forums or on Stack Overflow, follow Rails developers on social media, and contribute to open source projects. Rails has one of the most welcoming and friendly communities in tech.
In Conclusion
After reading this guide, you should have a solid understanding of what Ruby on Rails is, why it‘s so popular, and how to start using it for your own web development projects. Rails has been one of the most influential web frameworks over the past two decades and it continues to evolve to meet the needs of the modern web.
Its focus on simplicity, developer productivity, and convention over configuration has influenced countless other frameworks across many languages. Whether you‘re building a small side project or the backend for a large web application, Rails is a powerful, mature tool to have in your toolkit.
