Mar 22, 2023
Ruby on Rails is a renowned web development platform. Ruby is an object-oriented interpreted one of the most popular programming languages. Ruby on rails assists in making cool websites and apps. So it is a great choice for building a web application. RoR is an open-source framework distributed under an MIT license, so you do not have to spend money on the framework. RoR has reduced the time in coding your applications. So you can make your new products and market them even faster.
If you are still wondering why Ruby on Rails development is on the highest priority list when it comes to web development? Well, there are certain salient reasons that lie behind this are:
- Agile methodology
- Convention over configuration
- Huge collection of gems
- Automated testing
Every developer is always looking forward to reducing the number of effort and time they put into building a web application. RoR is designed for them. RoR is an open-source framework. Along with the advantage of gems, developers can save time and effort.HTML, CSS, and JAVA is mostly time-consuming. So preferably Ruby on Rails is a popular choice for small businesses and start-ups due to its cost-effectiveness feature. Without inculcating extra costs, RoR offers all the features and functionalities developers need to build a high-quality product.
Ruby is a popular and in-demand programming language in today’s time and there is high demand for RoR professionals also. The data of the Built with trends website shows the statistics of 3,841.525 websites that use ruby on rails. Along with that 1145587 live websites currently using Ruby on rails.
This data is enough to prove why you should choose ruby on rails over other languages. It is the most popular bach-end framework written in Ruby. It is a versatile tool and it has a flexible and wide range of capabilities.
What is Ruby on Rails(RoR)?
To create various types of applications RoR is used. Ruby is a programming language whereas Ruby on Rails is a development framework for web applications written in Ruby.
With RoR you will get standard features and functionality that aids in making your web application.
Have a look at real brands that use RoR:
- Hulu
- GitHub
- Shopify
- Etsy
- Fab
- Airbnb
- Slideshare
- CrunchBase
- Groupon
What is Rails?
Rail is a framework for web application development written in Ruby programming language. It provides structure to web developers for all the codes. Rails require less code but provide more capabilities than any other language or framework.
Good Read: Ruby on Rails Developers – Skills, Job Description, Salary, and Everything You Need to Know
What Are Gems in Ruby on Rails?
Let us know what are ruby gems and why are they important. Ruby is a programming language. Rails work as their web development framework. Rails work as a software library or package library on your computer.
These package libraries are considered “Ruby Gems”. Gems are libraries that allow any Ruby on rails developer to add functionalities without writing the code. Unlike HTML, CSS, and JAVA RoR language allows full-stack web application development. Kaminari is the most popular Rails Gems.
In this article, I have jotted down a list of the 20 best Ruby on Rails Gems for web application development. Depending on your project needs you can consider their functions.
List of Top 20 Best Ruby Gems for Web applications
- Kaminari
If you look at the most standard rails gems, Kaminari is in the top position. It has approximately 5 million downloads. It is the most commonly used gem, using this gem anything can be paginated.
Kaminari is a scope, engine-based, clean, powerful, agnostic, customizable, and sophisticated paginator for rails.
GitHub: 8.3k stars
- PRY
While integrating some libraries, writing code, or binding some gems doesn’t integrate properly so during that time continuously we get errors.
To eliminate that kind of issue and also for debugging the errors in our code PRY is the perfect choice you can use without any doubt.
By using PRY we are able to implement step-by-step code debugging by setting the breakpoints.
Features of PRY is syntax highlighting, command shell integration, navigation around the state, runtime invocation, exotic object support, and a powerful and flexible command system.
GitHub: 6.6k stars
- DEVISE
In some cases, we need to provide authentication and authorization for the specific application. If you are making an application on one of the social media networks or building an e-commerce solution. The developer needs to provide the Authorization and authentication for the specific application. In that case, the devise gem fits the best.
To solve this some developers go for their own code for user authentication whereas most of the developers prefer to go for Ruby gem devise.
Devise has 10 modules such as database authentication, omniauthable, confirmable, recoverable, registrable, rememberable, trackable, timeoutable, validatable, and lockable.
GitHub: 23.1k stars
- CANCANCAN
With this gem, we can define rules and permission for the users by limiting the experience of certain types of users and also gives us a layer of security.
The Authorization definition library module allows developers to set the rules for users.
GitHub: 5.3k stars
- ActiveRecord import
It is a great gem to insert bulk data. It works as per active record associations, producing marginal SQL insert statements as needed. If you have a dedicated RoR developer along with this gem you will not have to deal with the N+1 insert issue.
Active record is a magnificent choice for uploading ten records. Uploading multiple records can be a terrifying task. It is useful for the import of external data. Active record import reduces the transformation time.
GitHub: 3.8k stars
- Figaro
Figaro is Heroku-based rails gem application arrangement. It is an easy way to securely configure rails applications. For the secure configuration of rails-based applications, we will require YAML and ENV records.
This gem has a show, capable enough to keep the arranged data and SCM separated from one another. It analyses the YML file and stores the result in ENV.
GitHub:3.8k stars
- RSpec Rails
This gem is perfect for developers who are in who are into writing unit test cases. This gem allows developers to incorporate the RSpec framework in a rails assignment.
It is used in test-driven web application development and behavior-driven development environments.
GitHub:4.9k stars
- Ahoy
Ahoy is an analytic solution for native Javascript and ruby apps that tracks events and visits. Ahoy is a ruby engine responsible for creating visit tickets, that includes client device information, traffic source, and location.
GitHub:3.8k stars
- Delayed Job
To manage extensive running activities delayed job is used. Delayed job gem works as the storing of objects in the database. It takes care of the more strained consecutive activities for background tasks. Its new feature includes sending large numbers of newsletters, spam checks, image resizing, updating smart collections, and HTTP downloads.
GitHub:4.8k stars
- PaperClips
Paperclips work as rescue working with the file attachments. It requires a lot of effort and time. Paperclips keep an eye on the complete ruby application procedure. It converts images to thumbnails for use in custom rail applications.
GitHub:9.1k stars
- Bullet
This gem is specifically designed to increase web application performance by reducing the number of queries. It keeps an eye on queries while app development. Also, notify you when you should add loading (N+1) queries.
GitHub:6.8k stars
- Pundit
This ruby gem handles authorization via a very simple API. Mark here authorization and authentication both are different things. In the process of authorization, the device looks at users and examines their characteristics. To ensure the client they are using is allowed to take assess to certain features. It allows you to restrict certain parts of your application to approved users.
GitHub:7.9k stars
- Active Admin
This RoR plugin is for generating administration-style interfaces. To make it simple for the developers with very less effort, it extracts business application designs. Along with that, it has features like filters, downloads, global navigation, and APIs.
GitHub:9.3k stars
- Sidekiq
Most commonly used background processing tools in ruby on rails. The reason being it is a clean, standard, and efficient tool for processing ruby. Multithreading capability enhances speed and makes background processing much faster and simpler.
GitHub:12.4k stars
- Rubocop
Among developers, Rubocop is the first choice to identify code quality. It has the best quality of fixing simple errors on its own. Such as line breaks, gaps, syntax highlighting, and grammar.
GitHub:12.2k stars
- Factory_bot
Factoey_bot was originally known as a factory girl. It is a software library for Ruby that provides factory methods to create text fixtures for automated software testing. It provides fake data to run test cases, which makes the testing process simple and quick and cuts down the manual data entry timing.
GitHub:7.7k stars
- Faker
For use in testing, it creates fake data including names, addresses, and phone numbers.
GitHub:7.7k stars
- Rolify
It is a role management library that allows you to add and manage user roles in your application.
GitHub: 3.1k stars
- Overcommit
This gem makes it easy to add, configure and run tasks on Git hooks in your project.
GitHub:3.8k stars
- Draper
Developers use this gem to develop decorators around the model. Using this you can simplify the complex template. One can prepare a more easy view with this gem.
GitHub:5.2k stars
Conclusion
To solve issues related to uploads, file testing, authentication, and authorization the above-listed ruby on rails are productive enough. To build a ruby on rails web app utilizing ruby on rails gems is a must.
