2026 Ruby on Rails Community Survey Results

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The Results Are In!

Nearly 1,800 developers from the Ruby on Rails community across 80 countries shared their thoughts on the tools, frameworks, and workflows that shape their daily development lives.

This year, we also asked about something that's on everyone's mind: AI. How teams are using it, how they feel about it, and whether it's actually changing the way they work.

This is the ninth edition of our survey since 2009. For nearly two decades, it has been one of the key ways our team at Planet Argon keeps a pulse on how this community has evolved.

Some of these questions date back to our very first survey, allowing us to track trends over time. Others are new additions, designed to reflect what's changed in our ecosystem since we last asked.

Now it’s time to dig in. We hope you find something useful, surprising, or at least validating here.

How to read the charts: Responses were collected from April to early July 2026. Percentages are based on the people who answered each question. Many questions let people pick more than one answer, so those totals add up to more than 100%. Write-in answers were grouped by hand.

Demographics

Who took the 2026 survey.

Which one of the following applies to you?

Percent of respondents.

How did you learn to code?

Percent of respondents by survey year.

In 2026:CS degree44%Self-taught41%Bootcamp8%On the job7%

How many years of experience do you have developing with Ruby on Rails?

Percent of respondents.

Teams & Responsibilities

How Rails development teams are shaped and how they collaborate.

How big is the software development team for your primary Rails app(s)?

Percent of respondents.

Has your development team grown or shrunk in the last two years?

Percent of respondents by survey year.

In 2026:About the same size51%Grown30%Shrunk19%

Who uses your application/s?

Percent of respondents by survey year.

In 2026:Mostly consumer-only (public)47%A balanced mix of consumers and internal users42%Mostly internal users only11%

How do you give your developers access to realistic data for local development and bug reproduction?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

When new developers join your project, where do they tend to struggle most?

Respondents could pick up to three. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Other responses

Authentication and authorization setup

Ruby & Rails Version Updates

What versions the community is running and what holds upgrades back.

What versions of Ruby are you using in your applications?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Which Ruby version manager are you using?

Percent of respondents by survey year. Select all that apply, so totals add up to more than 100%. mise appeared twice on the form; respondents who picked both are counted once.

In 2026:rbenv39%mise38%Docker (base images)25%asdf20%RVM17%

What versions of Rails are you using in your applications?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

How long has your Ruby on Rails application been in development?

Percent of respondents.

What keeps you from keeping your Ruby and Rails versions up-to-date?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Configuration

How Rails applications are configured and what they integrate with.

What are you primarily working on?

Percent of respondents by survey year.

In 2026:Monolith81%Hybrid16%Microservices4%

What third-party email services do your Rails apps integrate with?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Other responses

MailPace (formerly OhMySMTP)SendPro (formerly Flowmailer)

Which Active Job adapters do you use to process background jobs?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Do any of your Rails applications have a companion native mobile app?

Percent of respondents.

How is your companion mobile app built?

Asked of respondents with a companion native app. Select all that apply. Percent of those respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Learning

How Rails developers built their skills and stay connected to the community.

What was your level of web programming expertise before learning Ruby on Rails?

Percent of respondents.

In the first two years of learning Ruby on Rails, what methods did you use?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Of these methods of learning, which did you feel worked best for you?

Percent of respondents.

If you attended a bootcamp and/or school for learning to code...which one(s)?

Write-in responses, listed by number of mentions. Percentages are of respondents who answered this question.

Most Mentioned

  • Le Wagon16%
  • Flatiron School3%
  • The Odin Project3%
  • General Assembly2%
  • Dev Bootcamp2%
  • Big Nerd Ranch2%
  • Epitech2%
  • The Iron Yard2%
  • Turing School2%
  • Makers Academy2%

Other Mentions

  • École 42
  • App Academy
  • Launch School
  • Career Foundry
  • Epita
  • The Hacking Project
  • Udemy
  • CodeUp
  • Rolemodel Software Craftsmanship Academy
  • Treinadev

What type(s) of educational content helps you learn the most effectively?

Respondents could pick up to three. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Have you been to a conference (regional or bigger) for Ruby and/or Rails in the last year?

Percent of respondents by survey year.

In 2026:No72%Yes28%

What conference(s) are you hoping to attend in the coming year?

Write-in responses, ranked by number of mentions. Rails World led by a wide margin: 30% of respondents plan to attend.

Top 10

  • 1. Rails World
  • 2. EuRuKo
  • 3. Brighton Ruby
  • 4. RubyConf
  • 5. RubyKaigi
  • 6. Tropical.rb
  • 7. Blue Ridge Ruby
  • 8. Rocky Mountain Ruby
  • 9. Helvetic Ruby
  • 10. SF Ruby

Other Mentions

  • TinyRuby
  • Balkan Ruby
  • Kaigi on Rails
  • Rails Girls
  • Baltic Ruby
  • Blastoff Rails
  • RubyConf Austria
  • Deccan Queen on Rails
  • WrocLove.rb
  • XO Ruby

Do you participate in Ruby/Rails user groups?

Percent of respondents who said yes, by survey year. Local in-person and online groups were asked as separate questions. Online groups were first asked in 2020.

In 2026:Online35%Local in person26%

Gems & Open Source

Community contribution and the gem ecosystem.

How often do you contribute to open source projects?

Percent of respondents.

Which Ruby gems frustrate you the most?

Write-in responses, ranked by number of mentions. Percent of respondents who answered this question. Tied answers share a rank.

Top 10

  • 1. devise12%
  • 2. nokogiri3%
  • 3. rspec2%
  • 4. activeadmin2%
  • 5. rubocop2%
  • 6. webpacker1%
  • 7. pundit1%
  • 7. factory_bot1%
  • 9. sidekiq1%
  • 10. pagy0.8%

Other Responses

  • haml
  • jbuilder
  • ransack
  • cancancan
  • omniauth
  • active_model_serializers
  • carrierwave
  • grpc
  • turbo
  • graphql

Which Ruby gems do you love?

Write-in responses, ranked by number of mentions. Percent of respondents who answered this question. Tied answers share a rank.

Top 10

  • 1. devise8%
  • 2. sidekiq7%
  • 3. rubocop6%
  • 4. ruby_llm4%
  • 5. rspec3%
  • 6. pagy3%
  • 7. pry2%
  • 7. pundit2%
  • 9. puma2%
  • 10. ransack1%

Other Responses

  • view_component
  • standard
  • turbo-rails
  • herb
  • minitest
  • strong_migrations
  • bullet
  • phlex
  • good_job
  • kamal

JavaScript + Rails

How JavaScript sits alongside Rails in modern applications.

What tool(s) do you use to manage your JavaScript libraries?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Which JavaScript libraries or frameworks do you use with Rails? Check all that apply.

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Other responses

Preact 1%Elm 1%Unpoly 0.4%

What JavaScript testing frameworks are you using to write tests?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Other responses

WebdriverIOAva

Code Integrity & Security

Testing, monitoring, and staying on top of vulnerabilities.

What testing frameworks are you using to test your Rails app(s)?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

What is your current code to test/spec ratio?

Percent of respondents.

What is your go-to Ruby debugger tool?

Percent of respondents.

Which application monitoring services do you use?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Other responses

Sumo

What code quality tools do you use?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Other responses

CoverallsSkunk

What tools are you using to track security vulnerabilities?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Where does your primary Rails application feel most fragile right now?

Respondents could pick up to three. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Deployment & DevOps

Where Rails apps run and how they get there.

How often do you deploy your Rails applications to production?

Percent of respondents by survey year.

In 2026:Multiple times a day41%Multiple times a week36%Multiple times a month18%Multiple times a quarter5%

Where is your source code hosted?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Which automated deployment tools do you use? (select all that apply)

Percent of respondents by survey year. Select all that apply, so totals add up to more than 100%. Kamal grew from 2.4% in 2024 to 23.8% in 2026, after Rails 8 made it the default deployment tool for new apps.

In 2026:Continuous Deployment via CI60%Git40%Kamal24%Capistrano16%None8%

Where do you host your production Rails app(s)?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Other responses

HatchboxRailwayCoolifyVultr

Which Rails Servers are you using in production?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Which Continuous Integration (CI) servers do you use? (select all that apply)

Percent of respondents by survey year. Select all that apply, so totals add up to more than 100%. 4% use no CI.

In 2026:Github Actions69%Circle CI16%Gitlab15%Jenkins7%Buildkite5%

Runner-ups in 2026

CodePipeline (AWS) 2%Bitbucket Pipelines 2%Travis CI 0.4%Codeship 0.1%

What CDN(s) do you use? (select all that apply)

Percent of respondents by survey year. Select all that apply, so totals add up to more than 100%. 22% don't use a CDN.

In 2026:CloudFlare45%CloudFront32%Cloudinary4%Google Cloud CDN3%Fastly3%

Runner-ups in 2026

Azure CDN 1%

Databases

Which data stores back Rails applications.

Which nosql databases do you use in production? (select all that apply)

Percent of respondents by survey year. Select all that apply, so totals add up to more than 100%.

In 2026:Redis76%PostgreSQL (via JSONB / HStore)46%ElasticSearch25%MongoDB9%DynamoDB8%

Runner-ups in 2026

CouchDB 0.4%

No longer asked

Riak

Which relational databases do you use in production?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Which database would you prefer to use in production?

Percent of respondents by survey year.

In 2026:PostgreSQL85%SQLite7%MySQL6%MariaDB2%

OS, Editors & Servers

The tools developers reach for on their local machines.

Which operating system do you primarily use for local development?

Percent of respondents.

Are you using Docker for local development?

Percent of respondents.

What is your preferred code editor?

Percent of respondents by survey year. Zed (10.2%) and Cursor (5.4%) were write-in responses in 2026 — they weren't offered as formal options in prior surveys.

In 2026:Visual Studio Code45%Vim-based23%RubyMine19%Zed10%Sublime Text7%

Runner-ups in 2026

TextMate 1%IntelliJ 1%

No longer asked

Atom

AI Adoption

How AI tools are (and aren't) landing in Rails workflows.

How is your team currently using AI tools in your development workflow?

Percent of respondents.

Which AI coding tools or assistants do you use?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

Other responses

WindsurfAmazon Q DeveloperClineAiderTabnineContinue.dev

Beyond coding assistance, how is your team exploring AI in relation to your Rails applications?

Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.

AI coding tools are overhyped and won't fundamentally change how I build software.

Percent of respondents.

17% agree13% neutral69% disagree

I feel frustrated by the growing expectation to use AI in my workflow.

Percent of respondents.

33% agree21% neutral46% disagree

I intentionally limit AI to boilerplate tasks so I stay in control of the real problem-solving.

Percent of respondents.

27% agree22% neutral51% disagree

The pace of AI advancement makes me anxious about the long-term value of my skills.

Percent of respondents.

51% agree17% neutral32% disagree

AI tools are here to stay and I've made peace with that, limitations and all.

Percent of respondents.

76% agree14% neutral10% disagree

I've adapted how I work and AI genuinely makes me more capable.

Percent of respondents.

74% agree14% neutral12% disagree

Leadership largely ignores AI's impact on how we build software.

Percent of respondents.

12% agree15% neutral73% disagree

Our team restricts or prohibits AI tools due to risk concerns.

Percent of respondents.

14% agree11% neutral75% disagree

AI use is limited to experiments; it hasn't made it into our real workflows.

Percent of respondents.

9% agree8% neutral83% disagree

Our approach to AI adoption feels reactive and poorly thought through.

Percent of respondents.

21% agree23% neutral56% disagree

We're taking AI seriously and working toward a realistic, balanced stance.

Percent of respondents.

68% agree21% neutral12% disagree

We have clear policies that actually empower engineers to use AI effectively.

Percent of respondents.

46% agree28% neutral25% disagree

Which AI models do you reach for most in your development work?

Write-in responses, grouped by hand. Percent of respondents who answered; people could name more than one.

Other Responses

Claude (unspecified)GLM / Big Pickle (Zhipu AI)Claude HaikuMiniMaxGemma (Google)GitHub CopilotGrok (xAI)Mistral/DevstralLocal LLMsAmp

The Future of Rails

Sentiment on where Rails is heading and what teams are planning next.

I feel confident security vulnerabilities are being addressed in new Rails releases.

Percent of respondents.

90% agree10% neutral0.8% disagree

What technical changes have teams taken on, or are considering?

Two questions: what significant technical changes has your team completed in the last 24 months, and what is it planning or evaluating in the next ~12 months? These reflect choices individual teams made for their own codebases and constraints, not recommendations. Select all that apply. Percent of respondents who answered each question (1,659 and 1,509). None in the last 24 months: 5%. None planned: 11%.

Completed, last 24 monthsPlanning or evaluating, next 12 months

Upgrades

Rails version upgrade76% · 62%
Ruby version upgrade71% · 58%

AI & the app layer

Adopted AI agents or agentic coding workflows41% · 19%
Overhauled the JavaScript / frontend layer20% · 18%
Replaced or overhauled background job processing15% · 10%
Replaced or rewrote the authentication system10% · 8%

Infrastructure & deploys

Adopted Kamal14% · 7%
Adopted self-hosted CI runners8% · 4%
Consolidated CI pipelines around GitHub Actions15% · 4%
Migrated away from Heroku11% · 13%
Moved to self-hosted infrastructure7% · 4%
Switched to a different hosting provider14% · 9%

Architecture

Consolidated services back into a monolith6% · 4%
Extracted functionality into Rails Engines6% · 5%
Introduced Packwerk for modular boundaries3% · 3%
Merged multiple apps into one7% · 5%
Migrated to a monorepo5% · 2%
Moved from monolith toward services5% · 6%

Data

Migrated away from SQLite1% · 0.5%
Migrated to a different database engine5% · 3%
Migrated to SQLite in production3% · 2%

Testing & types

Adopted RBS / Steep for type checking1% · 2%
Adopted Sorbet for static type checking2% · 2%
Migrated from Minitest to RSpec2% · 1%
Migrated from RSpec to Minitest6% · 4%
Shifted to running tests locally before deploying4% · 4%

Dots with a halo are past the 45% axis; the exact numbers are beside each row.

Ruby on Rails is my server side framework of choice.

Percent of respondents.

91% agree6% neutral4% disagree

The Rails core team is shepherding the project in the right direction.

Percent of respondents.

74% agree21% neutral5% disagree

I recommend that new developers learn to build Rails apps in 2026.

Percent of respondents.

78% agree15% neutral7% disagree

In Conclusion

AI is no longer a sidebar in Rails development. It showed up throughout this year's responses- in the tools people reach for, the gems they love, and the workflows they're rethinking. The community isn't watching from a distance- we're actively exploring.

Some things remain constant. A few of the same tools, books, and podcasts that have anchored this ecosystem for years are still showing up. And new ones are appearing alongside them.

At Planet Argon, we remain steadfast in our belief that Ruby on Rails is an exceptional platform to invest in, and we're excited to continue supporting its growth.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to contribute to the 2026 Rails Community Survey- our ninth edition since 2009. Eighty countries' worth of perspectives on a framework that keeps finding new reasons to stick around. We'll see you in 2028!