20 Years of Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is a web framework that is now celebrating its 20th anniversary. It revolutionized web development back in the day and even now, products and MVPs can be quickly brought to life using the framework. What’s behind it, how does Ruby on Rails (RoR) work, and why is it still worth investing in RoR?

Here’s a brief homage to its 20th anniversary, where we describe the advantages of the framework from our perspective as a Rails agency.

The Ruby programming language was developed in the 1990s in Japan. The Ruby on Rails framework was released in 2004 by David Heinemeier Hansson as an open-source project and quickly gained popularity. The framework was developed to allow for quick application development, provide good “defaults” (convention over configuration), and avoid repetition (DRY: don’t repeat yourself). Timing played a crucial role: it was the right moment for a strong web application framework. Rails is a full-stack framework that includes everything needed to build web applications, both frontend and backend.

Ruby on Rails was designed for rapid software development and is still well-suited for startups: stable and maintainable applications can be built quickly and inexpensively. As the startup grows, Rails scales with it, despite criticism in the past that it doesn't. Many mega-platforms running on Rails today prove otherwise, as detailed below.

Ruby on Rails is a well-organized open-source project supported by a foundation. Over 6,000 people have contributed to Rails’ code. A core team, currently comprising 12 members including David Heinemeier Hansson (known in the community as DHH), evaluates pull requests, addresses issues, and does much of the groundwork for new features.

Ruby on Rails is used exclusively for web application development. If you need or want to develop such applications, there are many frameworks and tools to choose from, including Python, Java, or PHP, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. We exclusively use Ruby on Rails for web applications and highlight its advantages below.

For decision-makers and project managers, Ruby on Rails offers the advantage of rapid development time, meaning projects can be completed and brought to market faster. Cost efficiency is also enhanced by the accelerated development time. Additionally, the robust and flexible structure of RoR allows for high scalability and maintainability of the application, providing long-term investment security.

Developers appreciate Ruby on Rails for its intuitive and clear syntax, which increases productivity and makes the development process enjoyable. There are numerous comprehensive and well-documented gems (libraries) for various features and functions, saving valuable time.

Furthermore, RoR promotes best development practices and strong community support, facilitating knowledge sharing and continuous improvement of code quality. The community consists of many dedicated Rails developers who have a vested interest in advancing the framework, often offering their own products and services in Rails.

A significant advantage of Ruby on Rails is the “convention over configuration” principle. This means developers need to make minimal configuration decisions since RoR provides sensible defaults and conventions. This reduces complexity and significantly speeds up the development process.

RoR offers a robust, integrated testing environment that enables comprehensive and efficient quality assurance. Developers write automated tests to ensure their applications work flawlessly. This is a significant advantage compared to other frameworks, which often require additional configurations or external tools. RoR’s testing environment is one of the main reasons we decided to work exclusively with Ruby on Rails when we founded makandra 15 years ago.

Ruby on Rails supports the automation of repetitive tasks through tools like Rake. Tasks such as database migrations, test executions, and other recurring processes can be automated, making them faster and more reliable.

RoR includes built-in security mechanisms that protect applications from common vulnerabilities. Protection against SQL injection, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) is integrated by default, enhancing application security.

Ruby on Rails supports the creation of RESTful APIs, simplifying and standardizing the development of modern web applications. This architecture provides a clear and understandable structure for application resources and facilitates integration with other services and applications.

Ruby on Rails is still used in many applications today. Here are a few you might recognize or use yourself.

The original Rails application is Basecamp. DHH first developed the web-based project management software and then extracted the Ruby on Rails web framework from it.

Many massively popular and large applications soon followed, including GitHub, which no developer can ignore, and Shopify, a globally used e-commerce software. Likely, you’ve visited websites running on RoR, even if you’re not a web developer or prefer to avoid online shopping.

We all book vacations, maybe even an apartment on Airbnb, with RoR in the background. Have you ever used or supported crowdfunding? Then you might have been on the RoR application Kickstarter. If you stream on Hulu instead of Netflix, you’ve also encountered RoR. If you work in customer support, you might be familiar with Zendesk, a support platform built with RoR.

German examples developed by us include the Audi MediaCenter, where you can view the latest models of the German automaker or learn about other company news. Six million people in the DACH region use the video learning platform Studyflix monthly. And all elementary school children in Germany preparing for their bicycle license use the portal die-radfahrausbildung.de, both also built with love in Ruby on Rails.

Admittedly, working with Ruby on Rails sometimes feels a bit niche. Ruby is not the first programming language students learn at university. Outside the developer community, it is probably not known, whereas even non-techies might have heard of Java or Python.

However, Ruby remains an extremely expressive language that is easy for developers to write. The strengths of Rails remain: it is a complete framework specialized in modern web applications, and Rails continues to evolve.

The argument that there are few Ruby developers should be considered with the fact that 99% of Ruby developers are web developers working with RoR. Java is found in microcontrollers, mobile and desktop applications, and of course on the web, but with a dozen different web frameworks.

Looking into the future is risky, but we dare to do it anyway. As Rails enthusiasts, we might be a bit biased, but we see every day what we can achieve with our projects.

Ruby on Rails is here to stay. With the strong and talented community, RoR will continue to play an important role in web development for a long time. The Rails Foundation, established in 2022, has provided more financial support to the open-source framework, positively influencing its future. We have also joined the Rails Foundation this year as the first German contributing member.

The Rails Foundation sees its mission as follows:

We are here to stay as well, and we will remain loyal to Ruby on Rails. Our team of Rails experts has built up a lot of knowledge through daily work with the framework, which we want to continue to apply to many exciting projects and pass on.

The future holds some challenges for us. Many of them can be addressed with digitization, software, and technology. We look forward to being a part of this with Ruby on Rails.