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I don't have any experience in Rails, but similar experience with Django. I am running several apps on my own, while still working elsewhere full-time.

The largest one has around 250 views, of maybe 80 are just basic admin views. It is basically comparable to an ERP of a medium-side company with various levels of permissions etc. I was able to get most of the functionality into production in just one month -- I was not working full-time at that time. I have estimated it with some friends, and such an ERP in the corporate world would normally take a team two years to do -- one to spec and another to implement.

It has 1-2M monthly page views depending on the season, and the highest hitting pages are read-only and heavily cached, so the server load is minimal. I am further increasing the performance by making those pages static HTML using django-distill and using Cloudflare to cache/serve them.

The key thing is to keep things as simple as possible. I avoid REST/heavy frontend frameworks whenever possible. For most views for most apps, normal HTML form request-response user interface based on Bootstrap is perfectly fine.

I started by sprinkling Javascript when it was really needed, for example client side sorting so I can avoid server load. Now I use AlpineJS/HTMX for the interactivity. It has been great, although much slower to implement.

I would argue that framework isn't the winning component, the people are. A lot of people can say similar things for framework <<X>> and they'd be right given their own experience but I think they give themseleves too little credit. I've written my own frameworks for smaller projects because I didn't want the needless learning curve / cruft of a generalized framework and I can tell you they saved me so much time / effort / cost over the long term and they were tuned to my development style. All built with python and some off-the-shelf libraries. I'm not saying there's no place for generalized frameworks. They do help streamline development efforts and set a standardized model for building out your app/service which would be great with a team of people all tuned in to a specific framework but I would argue that in a single developer environment it doesn't matter much what you use, so long as you have fun with it. Productivity analyses are at best personal opinions in a forum like this.

Edit: basic grammar.

Excellent write up.

I worked with Rails and Phoenix in their early days and got plenty of value from each. If you're building a traditional web 2 app, look no further...similar to choosing Postgres, start there until you have really good reason to venture off.

Without taking away anything from these frameworks and as someone that spent over 10 years building app frameworks, sometimes it's not what I want.

I'm using Clojure for my current problem space which would stymy me if I tried to use Rails or Phoenix. I spent the past 4 months doing product/domain "shaping". There are no web pages yet..mostly pure server side domain and API calls for data gathering. After this exploration I now have several working subsystems and have figured out the pathway to the mvp which will come together quickly. As a bonus I have a working domain core to leverage for steps after the mvp.

For anyone who's ducked out of Rails World over the last decade (or two), I devoted my final conference talk last year to the topic of One-Person Framework with a real-world case study of how Rails 7+ specifically helps developers build ambitious apps, even as a solo developer. https://justin.searls.co/tubes/2024-11-09-11h03m00s/

I'm currently building out an app using AdonisJS. Its billed as a Rails like experience but in node. https://adonisjs.com/

I did a comparison between Rails, Adonis and Fiber (a Go "framework") before settling on Adonis (mostly due to node ecosystem and type safety).

It's been excellent so far, and the creator has an excellent series of tutorial videos that can get you up to speed quickly https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=jf5hHU0KT3Q. The documentation is also good. LLMs can get tripped up by older versions which you need to look out for.

I'm currently building an application to launch it soonish. I'm using Rails and doing everything myself (save for the design of the logo, and some input from a friend on UX).

What's more is that I'm building mobile applications using Hotwire Native. I'm a solo developer building 2 mobile apps(iOS and Android), supported by a fully functional web application and done with vanilla Rails with Hotwire Native.

I'm surprised how well Rails ecosystem is suited to do everything nowadays.

Rails is, if I'm being honest, better than Django in a lot of ways. Hotwire, the new SOLID cache/queue, turbo-native, etc.. But I still prefer the overall python ecosystem.

I think you're not giving yourself enough credits and you're giving Rails too much.

I know a developer who followed a similar approach in PHP.

A relative of mine is running his company as a single dev in node.js + react.

My company runs on Python.

The key skill is being a good generalist willing and capable to do all the roles you need. Every tech stack can be automated for most small business needs, so that you can reduce the time spent on it.

I don't know if the framework really matters that much?

Just choose anything popular and there should be plenty of help available.

I've been using Laravel for about 11 years now. I hate it, but it keeps on trucking along so I've resisted the urge to do a complete rewrite. I don't think anything is particularly slow to develop.

It's the business side of things that's the hard part.

Is there any other framework which can claim that it compares well to Ruby on Rails speed of development? I.e. conventions over configurations? Asking as I don’t want to learn ruby

> Our new partners, while fans of our lean approach, had one non-negotiable requirement: adding another Rails developer to the team.

> The code represented not just PlanGo's evolution, but my own journey from a beginner to a more experienced developer. Parts of the codebase contained decisions made by different versions of myself, with varying levels of experience and understanding.

I've joined a few companies where the codebase was started by a (cough) inexperienced developer. The hardest thing is always breaking down someone's ego about their code. The most challenging is when a person in power needs rather (cough) forceful convincing that something needs to change.

One thing I'd be curious about are situations where Jetten had to let his ego go and learn from his co-worker.

Needless to say, in my other comment in this thread, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43836305 I didn't "fight" the battle against the rewrite. But I did fight, and win, the battle to remove a very poorly designed ORM.

Correct link: https://bramjetten.dev/articles/the-one-person-framework-in-...

Having worked as a basically one person Rails shop I think one of the things that makes a big difference on productivity is whether you can say no to the big react front end or not. (And I say that having come to like GQL: It's still like 5x the workload to have a react app + Rails back end.)

How does a solo developer/maintainer with a production app and thousands of active users take a "disconnected" long-week vacation?

I see a lot of love for Elixir/Phoenix floating around but oft posted is that Ruby is just an easier and more approachable language for many people.

I think that aside from Rails, that makes it one of the easiest languages to pick up and have fun with. I do miss my Rails days for that reason.

> Every experienced developer knows: never do a full rewrite.

> The rewrite took a couple of intense months, during which I maintained the existing application while building its replacement.

Having been through a rewrite in the past: You made the right decision. If a rewrite really is only a couple of intense months, it's worth it.

Otherwise, when your application gets into the "full of bad practices"; the alternative is to do major refactors.

I suspect that the application was small enough that the rewrite made more sense than a refactor.

> Sticking with a well-structured monolith was one of my best decisions.

I can't emphasize this enough. Did the same with a monolithic PHP application. David Heinemeier Hanson used the term 'majestic monolith' and it really feels like that, working on some cathedral in code.

Congrats on your good choices and results. A programming language that you like is important, but I think you should give your own decision making some more credit.

I use Django with Vue CDN for the MVP. The framework is similar to RoR. The key is not about the framework IMO, but whether you pick up a good track. If the demand is great, you can feel the pull from the market. Otherwise, whatever framework can't save you from failure.

I'd need the opinion of someone who's worked with other acclaimed technologies (his was PHP) to tell me that Rails is indeed that much better

In large regards, this is basically my dream life. I just do not know where to start/what to write honestly.

As somebody that doesn’t like ruby that much, what are the one-person frameworks in other languages?

Does Spring Boot qualify in this sense?

Honojs is another good one.

No depdancies. Frontend react as well as SSR included as jsx. Faster than fastify. JS/ES/TS runtime agonstic. Native tsx jsx support.

Rails is unmatched. I wish there was just a similar framework in a faster language.

Let’s be clear - the success is not because of Ruby on Rails.

You could build the same thing with nodes or python or golang or whatever.

There’s nothing special about rails, except that the developers speak like it’s special.

There’s nothing that can be quantified in any tangible way to indicate it’s actually better in any way. Rails has enthusiastic words, but it’s not actually better.