Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> It became the foundation for numerous successful companies - Airbnb, Shopify, Github, Instacart, Gusto, Square, and others. Probably a trillion dollars worth of businesses run on Ruby on Rails today.

Do those companies still run their businesses on RoR? My impression was that companies started out with it, but migrated to something more robust as their traffic grew.




Airbnb, Shopify and GitHub I can say never migrated away from RoR. The others I don't know.

Shopify is actually quite active in Ruby development and famously uses the new JIT compiler.


Shopify made the new Ruby JIT compiler. [0] They're on the Rails Foundation, as is 1Password, among others.

Stripe is still in on Ruby too; they're behind the Sorbet gradual type system, and Ruby is a first-class language for working with their API.

I always hear the stereotype of companies starting on Rails and migrating later, and I think it sticks around because it makes some level of intuitive sense, but it doesn't actually appear to happen all that often. I guess successful companies don't see the need to rewrite a successful codebase when they can just put good engineers to work on optimising it instead.

[0] https://shopify.engineering/ruby-yjit-is-production-ready


Instacart had an engineer presenting at Rails World 2024 just a few months ago; they're still heavily invested in the platform.


I know for sure Shopify, Github, and Gusto are big Rails shops.

Amazon was recently hiring for Rails to work on a podcast app they bought, too.


Yep, I’m at Amazon, now working on said podcasting subsidiary, ART19. We’re a rails shop.

There are a few acquisition companies and teams using Rails inside Amazon.




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2025 batch! Applications are open till May 13

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: