HACKER Q&A
📣 gvkhna

Why is there no modern replacement for Ruby on Rails?


I specifically mean an opinionated all or highly encompassing web framework. Most modern web frameworks are far more modular, whether for node or even go. I understand separation of concerns and different needs. But the popularity of rails back in the day (and still today but “slowly”) to quickly get many pieces working was clearly an advantage for many startups.

Now I feel like the goalposts are always moving for newer languages, new libraries and communities every few months, constant migrations to the latest and greatest.

I’m wondering if it’s simply DHH opinions, ruby’s allowance for magic via method missing, or simply too much focus on performance, that modern web frameworks are not quick to setup and use. By web framework I don’t just mean database and views, but also, auth, storage, image variants, job queues, development and production environments, admin backend, caching, good migrations. The list really goes on.

Yes you can use 10 different saas co’s and patch everything together, including things like cloudinary, supabase etc. Is this really better?

Or the only way to get way way faster is to simply abandon rails but take on a lot more development burden?

  👤 catlover76 Accepted Answer ✓
There are several in the TypeScript ecosystem, most notably NextJS.

Personally, I prefer modular, and hate super-opinionated, all-comprehending frameworks. When it comes to things like caching and job queues, which feel to me like they should be separate pieces of infrastructure. But to each his own. There is no shortage of people smarter than me, and many of course prefer all-encompassing.