Ruby on Rails is starting to make a powerful presence in tech as well. Although RoR is not leading the top of web application frameworks yet, its popularity is growing among developers and startup owners alike.
While it’s relatively easy to understand why programmers jump on the bandwagon easily (after all, RoR employs the MVC, has a pragmatic, no-nonsense syntax, etc), understanding why startup owners choose a lesser-known technology for their projects might be more complicated.
This post is an overview of all the benefits startup owners gets from Ruby on Rails development services.
Ruby on Rails Market Overview
While some are still wondering ‘Why is Python so popular’ there are various technologies that are simply better. To decide whether or not you should choose RoR as the dominant framework for your next project, let’s take a look at statistics and find out how many websites use the technology and which industries it’s commonly employed in.
Market share: 8.4%, according to Stack Overflow
Popularity by industry:
- Software and IT, as well as digital marketing and SEO companies
- Religious institutions
- Real estate
- Retail;
- Healthcare
Number of job openings: 2770 in the US, according to Indeed
Developer salary: $74,000 (according to PayScale)
Top Websites Built With Ruby on Rails
High-traffic platforms across all industries use Ruby on Rails for back-end support. Developers recognize RoR as a mature ecosystem, praise it for scalability and a mature ecosystem.
To have a better understanding of how Ruby on Rails can be used to support millions of users, take a look at how the following companies use the framework:
1. Netflix
The world’s largest streaming system uses Ruby on Rail to support the back-end of some of its subdomains (e.g. backlothelp.netflix.com or makeit.netlix.com). The platform employs RoR for JSON serialization as well (as described in the corporate Medium blog).
2. Airbnb
Although Airbnb doesn’t fully rely on Ruby on Rails (the platform uses JS for front-end and landing page builder, as well as Java for back-end assistance), the power of RoR is undeniable when it comes to HTTP request processing, horizontal scaling, and modularity.
3. Shopify
Shopify uses Ruby on Rails in conjunction with REST API to support a robust platform. Compared to alternatives (PHP and such), RoR is less messy, cheaper to maintain and scale - that’s what made it the fittest option for the e-commerce giant with millions of Shopify consultants.
4. Twitter
At its dawn, Twitter was a two-man team. With a limited workforce, the platform founders needed to bring a build to the market in just a couple of days. Out of all languages, Ruby was the one with the highest return on invested hours.
Among the benefits of choosing RoR for the first version of the platform are:
- A possibility to edit the code anytime with the little-to-no impact of change:
- High scalability potential
- Fast to-the-market delivery
5. Github
Although some developers badmouth Ruby on Rails for poor scalability, GitHub is the contrary proof. The platform with over 22 million users runs on the latest version of the framework and is considered the largest and the most convenient code repository worldwide.
Reasons to Use Ruby on Rails For Startup Development
With such a powerful following among tech giants, Ruby on Rails clearly has a lot to offer both nascent and experienced teams. Whether you already have an online startup or are considering starting one, switching to RoR or choosing it as a cornerstone of the stack is a wise reason - here’s why.
1.It’s scalable - although developers complain about RoR scalability issues, the thing is, if you choose horizontal scaling instead of the vertical model, there’s hardly a better tool. By moving server and load balancer, database, and app instances to different services, you ensure the top-level performance of your app even when the traffic in Google Analytics dashboards increases.
2.It’s easy to learn. Ruby on Rails has a straightforward architecture, is well-documented, and with a large community. That’s why the language has a manageable, easy-to-structure, learning curve.
3.Time-efficient development - Ruby on Rails has a succinct, eloquent syntax, offers a range of automation tools (such as the rake tool), and chooses convention over configuration sparing developers the need to configure code.
4.Robust library support - RoR is a mature language, with dozens of libraries and a large development community. Its documentation is one of the better-structured guidelines in software development ever created.
5.Few bugs - Ruby on Rails offers a Minitest tool that speeds up the process of mocking, benchmarking, and designing tests. Other than that, the language supports test-driven development, helping reduce the number of bugs in the end code. Using RoR-based software for email marketing helps to increase email deliverability.
6.Well-designed security infrastructure - the development team is diligent in tracking bugs and releasing security patches. In fact, since 2012, when a hacker found out he could perform multiple tasks remotely and hacked into GitHub to prove his point, no major RoR security exploits were exposed.
Conclusion
Although Ruby is not the newest and the shiniest toy in software development, it’s exactly the tried-and-true technology you want to employ for a founding-stage startup. The language proved its maturity, reliability, security, and readiness to change on multiple occasions - that’s why business owners can be confident in a steady performance and high-level security of their final builds.
Comments(10)