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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?

#171
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this depends on the context. I would argue that opinionated frameworks are *more* reliable, with the caveat that you need to know, and agree with those opinions. I think of RoR, Laravel, Next.js, and Django etc. like I'm crowdsourcing my apps architecture so I can just worry about building out my business logic. Even if you don't choose a framework at some point you end up building your own framework and intr…

For context, I've been in mobile for 10 years and in general it's the opposite - frameworks are rigid, but the layer under it shifts a lot. These frameworks tend to collapse in an earthquake like manner after multiple updates. We usually support iOS up to 2-3 years old, that's how bad it is. The other approach is to build it on a platform that shifts with the changes, i.e. hybrid and web. But if you crack open the so…

Unlike mobile, you have control over the underlying OS and full stack. So usually you aren’t forced to keep pace with your frameworks changes even if they were breaking. So long as you watch and patch security issues you’re fine, it will work forever. But you’ll occasionally likely feel a desire to upgrade things, I find it’s usually out of Want versus Need because it’s already so mature you have time to watch big new versions mature a bit before you roll to it. You might skip a major version or two because of this. Even since very early on I think I had a v1.x app that I continued hacking and building on until eventually moving to v4.x which was maybe 10 years later

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

#172
Choose whatever. Go is fine. Ruby is fine. Next.js is fine. Python with Django is fine. Even Haskell is fine if your initial gang knows it well. You won't fail because of the tech.

Actually choosing something everyone is comfortable and confident in using is probably a good choice.

You may fail for too many innovation tokens though. If you go off the rails (ha ha ha) on tech stack maybe stick to postgres for storage and AWS for hosting.

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

#174
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that DHH is a fascist, I do agree he gives off Musk vibes e.g. https://world.hey.com/dhh/mega-a0f62cd4 "so pumped up about Trump" https://world.hey.com/dhh/failed-integration-and-the-fall-of... "multiculturalism is bad" https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-social-media-censorship-era-is... "hooray for lack of fact checking" (you may agree with him or not, and he makes better argument than Musk, but it's the same…

What do any of those quotes have to do with fascism?

don't ask me, I said I don't think he's a fascist.

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

#176
Yes I would. I’m running my single product building agency https://cubitoo.com and it often blows my clients’ minds how easily we can incorporate advanced features with high level work Rails enables. I’m with Rails since v2 and never looked back.

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

#177
I recently had to choose between Django and Ruby on Rails (RoR). I’ve used Django for smaller projects but had never tried RoR. I picked these two because I think single-page applications (SPAs) are often more than what’s needed. After looking into Next.js, I realized I'd have to learn a lot to use it properly, and I didn’t want to dive into that. I just wanted to get started without dealing with complicated tools.

After thinking it over, I decided to give RoR a shot. The framework does a lot for you, which can be frustrating if you’re used to having control over everything. Still, I was surprised by how much I could accomplish in just a few days. The productivity is impressive, especially for startups that need to get things moving quickly.

So if you just want to prove a business idea, your customers don’t care what tools you use. I’d rather pay twice the price to scale in RoR than spend double the time developing a feature. I would earn it back with the additional customers I gain by pushing features faster out the door.

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

#178

Write go and plain SQL at the back end. Use whatever makes you happy for front end. Rails is not magical or vastly better than anything else in any way. Especially not since AI and Claude. Any mainstream technology is a great choice for building most things. Python node TypeScript Ruby, Golang C#. Since you already know Golang you’d be nuts to use anything else unless you’re just wanting fun and learning in which cas…

> My only very strong recommendation….. use plain old SQL. It’s a superb choice.

Although if you're going with Go, then sqlc (https://sqlc.dev) is a no-brainer.

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