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Ask HN: Would you still choose Ruby on Rails for a startup in 2025?

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Re: Ask HN: Would you still choose Ruby on Rails for a startup in 2025?

#71

Post by nona »

rohan_ wrote: post #54

Modern React is a "full-stack" framework - with the current recommended implementation being NextJS. If you build on NextJS you will get the entire tailwinds of the industry behind you. Having Cursor write a full-stack app that leverages server components alongside client components is a 10x velocity unlock that you won't get if you bifurcate your codebase (as is the rails model) Typescript is going to be the languag…

But there is LSP support? See: https://shopify.github.io/ruby-lsp/#with-vs-code

There's also (the older) solargraph.

Re: Ask HN: Would you still choose Ruby on Rails for a startup in 2025?

#72

Post by turtletime »

nickserv wrote: post #52

I would not. I've used PHP, Python, Go, JS/TS, and Ruby in production with small to medium teams. Teams that I managed on occasion and recruited, to a certain extent. RoR is great at first but in my experience quickly becomes full of hard to diagnose bugs, its magic metaprogramming seems too tempting for developers to use and leads to all sorts of problems. There is a lack of good quality, well maintenained 3rd party…

Agreed that the metaprogramming can lead to some head-scratchers. However, in my experience with Rails/Ruby, that generally seems frowned up on most teams.

Readability is a core tenant in Ruby, but every once in a while someone likes to show how clever they are. No more a problem in Ruby than other languages IMO.

I disagree that there is a lack of good quality, well maintained libraries. Depending on the domain, I think most people would agree that Ruby and Rails has a pretty thriving 3rd party ecosystem. A big part of that is because of how mature both Ruby and Rails are.

Re: Ask HN: Would you still choose Ruby on Rails for a startup in 2025?

#74

Post by turtletime »

I would highly recommend you give it a try. In my ~20 years of doing development professionally, I've never found anything that comes close to the productivity you get out of Rails on a new project (even if you're new to Ruby/Rails).

It can be hard to recruit for as mentioned, but I've never had an issue with it unless you have constraints (on-site, salary, etc).

Try to stick with the "Rails Way" as long as possible. It's tempting to adopt patterns that have become popularized (services objects, etc), but they can work against you in a Rails app.

Re: Ask HN: Would you still choose Ruby on Rails for a startup in 2025?

#76

Post by mahmoudimus »

schappim wrote: post #62
mahmoudimus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shifting to solid queue, backed by your rdbms, is more boring than using redis. Successfully deploying an app without anything but a database server is pretty powerful. Everything just works. I would say that's pretty boring :)

> Everything just works. I long to live in your world where this is the case! Unfortunately the migration from Sidekiq + Redis → Solid Queue has been anything but boring.

I started fresh from Rails 8, so maybe that's why I didn't deal w/ that migration problem. I'm sorry it was stressful :(

Re: Ask HN: Would you still choose Ruby on Rails for a startup in 2025?

#77

Post by phaedryx »

hedgehog0 wrote: post #69
nickserv wrote: post #52

I would not. I've used PHP, Python, Go, JS/TS, and Ruby in production with small to medium teams. Teams that I managed on occasion and recruited, to a certain extent. RoR is great at first but in my experience quickly becomes full of hard to diagnose bugs, its magic metaprogramming seems too tempting for developers to use and leads to all sorts of problems. There is a lack of good quality, well maintenained 3rd party…

> If you're doing AI stuff, any Python framework will be best. I understand that AI stuff now is mainly Python. But is it possible to connect Rails with some Python program/service, is this one of the purpose of microservices?

I work for a company that uses Rails. We don't have any Python code, but we use a lot of AI.

Re: Ask HN: Would you still choose Ruby on Rails for a startup in 2025?

#78

Post by moorow »

schappim wrote: post #62
mahmoudimus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shifting to solid queue, backed by your rdbms, is more boring than using redis. Successfully deploying an app without anything but a database server is pretty powerful. Everything just works. I would say that's pretty boring :)

> Everything just works. I long to live in your world where this is the case! Unfortunately the migration from Sidekiq + Redis → Solid Queue has been anything but boring.

We're about to do this as well, but from resque. Got any tips to share?

Re: Ask HN: Would you still choose Ruby on Rails for a startup in 2025?

#79

Post by Levitating »

fourside wrote: post #43

The biggest risk when going with a long established solution is the potential danger of picking something that is on its way out of the zeitgeist. Not that picking your tech stack should be a popularity contest (and in fact many people make the wrong choice by chasing trends), but picking a component that has been left behind can have some real consequences (e.g. might become increasingly harder to find good talent f…

> The biggest risk when going with a long established solution is the potential danger of picking something that is on its way out of the zeitgeist.

I long established solutions are likely long established for a reason. And they are also likely protected by the interests of the companies already using them.

I think it's easy to eyeball if an older solution is still actively developed, RoR clearly is. Newer solutions can be very popular and active now, but die within just a few years. Just look at all the JavaScript frameworks we've gained and lost in just the last couple of years.

Re: Ask HN: Would you still choose Ruby on Rails for a startup in 2025?

#80

Post by kowfm »

muzani wrote: post #28
tra3 wrote: post #11

Yes, I would. In fact, I'd use any boring technology [0]. Anything that's been around and battle tested. If I was at a startup trying to solve a business problem, the last thing I'd want to do is bruise my knuckles fighting with my tools. Rails provides an opinionated way to structure your codebase as well as many existing modules that just work. It's not exclusive in this space, but it's a safe bet. You can get any…

Is it boring technology? I'm actually reluctant to pick up Rails because it had always been sold by the Basecamp cult and Jason Fried gives off Musk vibes. Many opinionated frameworks are also less reliable because of the layers of abstraction, so I'd also associate opinionated framework = sexy and temporary. I've never actually used Rails in production, just did some tutorial, so I'm probably wrong about this.

I definitely recommend using Ruby, and Rails.

The Jason Fried and David Hansson Musk/Fascist vibes are real and are a problem. Most of the people in the Ruby community recognize that problem and are taking steps to mitigate that issue. Most of the core Rails committers don't work for 37 signals, and it's not really a thing made just by them.

Definitely use Rails to start a new project. The real hero here is Ruby and the Ruby ecosystem. It's incredibly stable and mature, But also getting faster every year. About 20 years ago Ruby web frameworks agreed on an ad hoc server interface api, Rack, which is one of the secrets that has made Ruby incredibly stable.

The package system, Ruby Gems, is really great. You can find a Gem for just about anything you could ever need or want. With mountains of Open Source projects and code to read to pick up patterns, or to see prior art to solve a unique problem you're encountering.

Anyways, it's a really solid choice.

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