Ruby on Rails Hosting

Get Started with a Free 2-Week Trail

Not sure where to start? We'd recommend heading over to DreamHost and signing up for their free two-week trial. Getting a Rails app up and running is fool-proof on their servers. (Plus, after the trial the cost is less than $10/mo - you can't beat that - and you can easily scale to accommodate more traffic).

Find a Rails Web Host By Location

Heroku is Not for Beginners

Sure, like a drug dealer, they give you a little bit for free. But, how good is the stuff?

Heroku's main appeal is to take away the DevOps hassles and allow developers to "git push production" and not worry about what happens after the (insanely slow) deploy process. But, like most things in life, if it's too good to be true, then...yep, it's not true.

Heroku: The good, the bad, and the ugly

The Good:

The Bad:

The Ugly:

Hosting Review: Just Host

At Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts give you pros and cons to weigh your decision against. The reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead they are opinions of customers that have gone before you, people who like you, value opinions and feedback. We hope that their experiences, whether for good or ill, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy your Ruby on Rails application.

Hosting Review: Fatcow

At Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts give you pros and cons to weigh your decision against. The reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead they are opinions of customers that have gone before you, people who like you, value opinions and feedback. We hope that their experiences, whether for good or ill, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy your Ruby on Rails application.

Rails Hosting review: Rackspace

We here at Rails Hosting are bringing you yet another review compilation. "Why?" you may ask. At Rails Hosting we feel it is our duty to keep you as informed as we can manage when it comes to Rails hosting and the companies that provide it. We wouldn't want you to get suckered into hosting with some company that has no clue what they are doing. Nor do we want you paying for something hoping that it works out, when in fact hundreds of people have posted warnings all over the web trying to give you the information you need. Alternately we also want to make sure you are clued into the best of the best. So, in an effort to pack your brain with more information than is medically safe, we are bringing you reviews, reviews, and more reviews. We hope this information helps you in your quest to find your perfect Rails host.

Rails Hosting review: iPage

At Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts give you pros and cons to weigh your decision against. The reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead they are opinions of customers that have gone before you, people who like you, value opinions and feedback. We hope that their experiences, whether for good or ill, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy your Ruby on Rails application.

Rails Hosting review: Bluehost

At Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts give you pros and cons to weigh your decision against. The reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead they are opinions of customers that have gone before you, people who like you, value opinions and feedback. We hope that their experiences, whether for good or ill, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy your Ruby on Rails application.

Rails hosting review: IXWebhosting

Here at Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts give you pros and cons to weigh your decision against. As is expected the reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead it's the voice of the internet, those that have gone before you that speaks on these posts. We hope that their experiences, whether for good or ill, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy the application of your dreams.

Platform as a service, why should you use it for Rails hosting?

With companies like Engine Yard and Heroku offering great cloud service for Ruby on Rails developers, its hard, if not impossible to peer into the world of Rails hosting without hearing something about a company that provides cloud PaaS hosting, and the surrounding benefits. In case you haven't however, in an effort to be your go to source for all things Rails hosting related, we are going to take a look at the benefits of hosting with a company that provides Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud services.

Rails hosting review: A2Hosting

We here at Rails Hosting are bringing you yet another review compilation. "Why?" you may ask. At Rails Hosting we feel it is our duty to keep you as informed as we can manage when it comes to Rails hosting and the companies that provide it. We wouldn't want you to get suckered into hosting with some company that has no clue what they are doing. Nor do we want you paying for something hoping that it works out, when in fact hundreds of people have posted warnings all over the web trying to give you the information you need. Alternately we also want to make sure you are clued into the best of the best. So, in an effort to pack your brain with more information than is medically safe, we are bringing you reviews, reviews, and more reviews. We hope this information helps you in your quest to find your perfect Rails host.

Rails hosting review: Site5

At Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts give you pros and cons to weigh your decision against. The reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead they are opinions of customers that have gone before you, people who like you, value opinions and feedback. We hope that their experiences, whether for good or ill, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy your Ruby on Rails application.

Hosting Review: Engine Yard

Here at Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts give you pros and cons to weigh your decision against. As is expected the reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead it's the voice of the internet, those that have gone before you that will give you their opinions. We hope that their experiences, whether for good or ill, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy the application of your dreams.

Hosting review: LiquidWeb

Here at Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts give you pros and cons to weigh your decision against. As is expected the reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead it's the voice of the internet, those that have gone before you that speaks on these posts. We hope that their experiences, whether for good or ill, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy the application of your dreams.

Hosting review: Dreamhost

Here at Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts will feature just one host and will give you a plethora of pros and cons to weigh your decision against. As is expected the reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead it's the voice of the internet, those that have gone before you that speaks on these posts. We hope that their experiences, good or bad, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy the application of your dreams.

Hosting reviews: HostGator

Here at Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts give you pros and cons to weigh your decision against. As is expected the reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead it's the voice of the internet, those that have gone before you that will give you their opinions. We hope that their experiences, whether for good or ill, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy the application of your dreams.

Hosting reviews: Heroku

Here at Railshosting.org our goal is to bring you the most up to date information in the world of Rails hosting. Whether that's uncovering news stories, bringing you great lists of tutorials, top hosts, or giving you the information you need to make the best choice possible to host your app. In an effort to bring you the most up to date information we've decided to crowd-source some of our information and bring you hosting reviews of some of our top hosts. These posts will feature just one host and will give you a plethora of pros and cons to weigh your decision against. As is expected the reviews contained in these articles are not the opinions of Railshosting.org. Instead it's the voice of the internet, those that have gone before you that speaks on these posts. We hope that their experiences, good or bad, will aid you in your journey to build and deploy the application of your dreams.

Rails reseller hosting plans. What’s the point?

Don’t like any Rails hosting options you have come across? Think you could create a better hosting environment in your sleep? Do you have needs that no hosting company seems to be able to meet? Then we may have an option for you. Buying a dedicated server and reselling portions of it may be the solution for you. For many buying a reseller package is a good way for the entrepreneurial developer, with aspirations to begin a hosting company or other web venture, to start out. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about: a reseller hosting package is a type of web hosting where the reseller account or dedicated server owner can partition their allotted drive space and bandwidth to host third party applications. Not only does this allow you to rent out space on the server, but it also gives you more control over you hosting environment.

Free Rails hosting?

If you’re out there looking for a Ruby on Rails version of free PHP hosting, there are a few options to choose from.Your first choice is going to be Heroku. They are the absolute leader in free Rails hosting. Their free plan offers a single dino and shared server space to get you up and running for free. The free tier works well for staging, testing, and running small apps. If your app grows and you get a ton of traffic the option to upgrade to a paid plan is simple and hassle free. Your second choice is HelioHost. The free plan from HelioHost includes "unlimited" bandwidth and .25GB of disk space, as well they offer Mongrel, Passenger, and Rails 3.0.3. HelioHost does not however offer SSH or the ability to run more than four applications on one plan. Third, check out AlwaysData. The free plan from AlwaysData offers .1GB of disk space, and 1GB bandwidth. AlwaysData's free plan also comes with restrictions such as forbidding the use of your account for profit and using your account for hosting proxies. Some companies will also occasionally offer one year of free Rails hosting in lieu of another year (or so) of paid hosting service on contract. HostingRails is one such company. They are currently offering one free year when you sign up for a "stacked", shared hosting plan. The price moves up to $7.95 a month after the first year of service and the starter plan offers the use of Mongrel, Passenger, 10GB of disk space and 100GB of bandwidth.

Top 5 hosts for beginning Rails developers

Looking for a place to host your first Rails app? Maybe you just have no idea what to look for in a host. If you are a developer who is just starting out with Rails then you need to know a few things. First, a lot of hosts don’t know what they are doing when it comes to supporting Rails. Second, a lot of hosts just flat don’t support the framework at all. With many hosts you really have to do your homework to make sure that your hosting experience will be a success. We have compiled a list of 5 hosting companies that are worthwhile for developers who are just starting out and are looking for a place to host their first applications.

Top Ruby on Rails jobs in June

As we mentioned a few days ago there are a ton of jobs for Rails developers. And by a lot, I mean there are hundreds, if not thousands of new positions opening up all over the web and world. A lot of positions are for web developers in general, but they all have Rails as either a necessary skill or as "a plus" to your resume. So, whether you're looking for a Rails job specifically, or more of a web generalist/guru position there are plenty of spots out there for you. Most of the jobs listed below are in the United States. However, a quick search will return a lot of jobs located all over the world. From Australia, to China, to Germany and Spain, if you're a Rails developer there are jobs out there with your name on them. We've scoured the net to bring you some of the hottest jobs and the companies you will be working for, if you take them.

Top 5 websites to find Ruby on Rails jobs

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of Ruby on Rails job offers out there. Just do a quick search on google or a search onTwitter and you'll see what I mean. There are seemingly more jobs offered than Rails developers available to fill them. Wondering why so many jobs? I won't bore you with the details. If you're reading this chances are you already know why Ruby on Rails is popular and why so many websites are using it to create great web experiences. What I can tell you is a few statistics about what you should expect as a Rails developer. First, the nation-wide (United States, sorry friends from elsewhere) average salary for a Rails developer is $92,000 per year. That's roughly 25% higher than the average salary for all jobs nationwide. Additionally, here are the stats from major cities in the United States:

Why you should want a Ruby on Rails host that is in the news.

In the last few weeks there has been a lot of news coming from the Rails Hosting community. To name just a few: the Engine Yard and Aquio partnership, the announcement of the new Cedar stack available at Heroku, and the launch of the Rails 3.1 release candidate and the lack of hosts ready to test and subsequently add it to their services. The truth is that you need a hosting company that stays in the news for being innovative and building their company. Otherwise you will likely be sitting with a company that probably doesn’t pay attention to the growth of the language and the wildly, apparent growing needs of its development community. Most likely, (just read a few of the reviews on less notable hosting solutions) they won’t be able to keep up with service needs. Eventually those stagnant companies will fall away and only the companies willing to grow will be left.

5 top Rails hosts located in the UK

If you are a Ruby on Rails developer in the UK, you may have had some trouble finding a hosting company with servers actually located in the UK. In our continued efforts to keep you up to date with the best list of hosting solutions, we have searched for, and located, several hosts with servers located in the UK (and the list keeps growing). We have also taken the time to list out the 5 that we think are the best for local UK Rails hosting.

Engine Yard strikes a partnership with Acquia

Ruby on Rails news is important to us here at Railshosting.org. We hope to put as many resources for your Ruby on Rails and hosting needs together as possible. With that we hope to bring you the information that you will need to make wise choices, and get in on the movement within our ever-growing, Rails influenced sector of the web. With that being said, there is big news coming out of the wire this morning concerning EngineYard. Looks like they have struck a deal with Acquia to provide managed cloud service for Drupal and Ruby on Rails apps. The deal is being toted as the "New Cloud Platform-as-a-Service Partnership that Will Combine Best-of-Breed Open-Source Web CMS and Custom Web Application Development." With the combination of these two efforts, the development of social media websites and very specific web applications should take less time by developers who use Drupal and Ruby on Rails.

Top 5 free tutorials for beginning Ruby on Rails developers

Just getting into developing with Rails? Are you wanting to learn more about how to put together a Rails application? We looked and found the top five most up to date free tutorials for developing with Ruby on Rails. If you’re looking to learn more about coding with Ruby on Rails or just looking to find some good tutorials to brush up on your basics then bookmark these pages for easy reference.

Find Rails Hosting solutions by server location

Hosts with tutorials on deploying Rails apps

Below is our extensive list of hosts with tutorials on installing and/or deploying a Rails app on their servers. Many new Rails developers have problems deploying their app for the first time. Often times this is attributed to being new at the Rails framework. However, sometimes this is due to servers not having easy installation and deployment methods. So, instead of leaving you to hope the server you choose will be easy to install on, we saved you the hassle and found as many tutorials as we could. Below are all the Rails installation and deployment guides that are server specific we could find. We hope this will be a great resource for you as you choose a Rails hosting solution.

Heroku releases its “Celadon Cedar” stack into public beta

Heroku is a leading Ruby on Rails hosting provider that prides itself on having a focused, easy to use and reliable service for hosting Rails. Heroku is excited to announce that as of June 1st, 2011 they are releasing their new Cedar stack into public beta. The new version of Heroku has previously been tested in alpha and private beta by hundreds of developers and Heroku customers. It is now ready for a public beta.

Top Ruby on Rails Hosting Recommendations for Rails Apps of Any Size

When deciding on a host, consider: Why do you need hosting? How much experience do you have deploying Rails apps? And how much traffic do you expect?

First, if you're just playing around or don't expect to be deploying anything huge, go with a free trial at DreamHost. Just configure your domain in their panel to be a Rails app, upload your project folder so the "public" directory matches the DocumentRoot you selected, and you're good to go.

Second, even if you have tons of experience building server environments and dancing around a unix shell, all of these hosts for smaller apps allow SSH access so you can set things up exactly how you like it.

Third, if you're expecting more than 1k dynamic hits a day or so, you'll want to deploy on a VPS or a cloud platform. Otherwise, if your app spits out pages that can be completely cached, a cheaper shared host will get the job done.

The funding behind 6 top Ruby on Rails hosts

Starting a new company? Ever wonder where your Rails host got its start? We looked into the backgrounds of several top Rails hosts to find out what started the machine, and what keeps it greased. It’s interesting to note that most (if not all) of the bigger hosting companies don’t have much financial history information readily available.

5 hosts that support Rails and the exact service level you should expect

Want your host to offer service with a smile? There are many Rails developers looking for a place to host their applications, and there are increasingly more hosting companies that “support” Rails. However, not all hosts are created equal. This is most clearly seen in their support teams. Not all support teams offer the same level of service. We have made a list of 5 hosts we think you should make note of who support Rails, and the service level you can expect from them. Keep in mind this is not a complete list of hosts that support Rails, just 5 that we think you should pay attention to for support quality and attention to Rails customers.

Top 12 contributors to Ruby on Rails since 2004

We are Ruby on Rails enthusiasts. So we want to offer some love to the Ruby on Rails community, and give credit where credit is due. To the hard working folks who have brought this amazing programming framework to life, we salute you. We’re going to take a look at the top Ruby on Rails contributors since 1994. The list is sorted by the amount of commits they have contributed, not how well known they are. Without further adiu, here's our list:

5 Rails hosts that have gone green

Do you have a deep care for our environment and the impact we have on it? Do you fall asleep at night dreaming about recycling and hybrid cars? Is your company one with more recycling bins than trash cans? If so, we found 5 hosts that you may want to check out. Whether it be through solar power or low energy usage technology, these 5 hosts are making efforts to keep environmental impact at a minimum.

Results of asking 11 top shared hosting companies the question: "Will you be supporting Ruby on Rails 3.1?”

Rails hosting services always boast things such as “excellent customer service”, “24/7 technical support” and “world-class customer service”. This is often at the very heart of their marketing campaign. It fills up their emails, tweets, Facebook posts, and covers their websites. If you’ve been coding with Ruby on Rails for any length of time you will testify that not many hosting companies actually live up to their promises. Often, right when you need their help the most, hosting companies will leave you waiting for hours to receive a response.

So, we sent a few of the hosting companies (11 to be exact) an email with a question. All of the emails were sent around 3PM Central US Time on a Tuesday. The question was fairly simple: “Will you be supporting Ruby on Rails 3.1?” Below are the results of how long it took them to get back to us and the answer that we received. They are sorted by response time. Shortest time is at the top.

Only 3 shared hosts ready for Rails 3.1? How lazy can we get?

For those of you who don’t know, and most of you do, having a host that updates Ruby on Rails with the latest framework and gems regularly is desirable. In this article we are taking a look at the hosts that going to hit the ground running with Rails 3.1 when it’s released. The results we find are astoundingly low. The update of Rails to 3.1 brings with it the implementation of “The Asset Pipeline”, which “makes CSS and JavaScript first-class code citizens and enables proper organization, including use in plugins and engines.” And many more features such as HTTP Streaming, default jQuery, Reversable Migrations, Mountable engines, Identity Map, Prepared statements, Rack::Cache on by default, Turn test-output on Ruby 1.9 ,Force SSL, Role-based mass-assignment protection, has_secure_password, and Custom serializers. Read on to find the champions of up to date Rails hosting.

10 companies hiring Ruby on Rails ninjas, and why you want to work for them

Are you a couched Rails ninja? Does your current employer not appreciate your sweet ninja skills? If you’re on the market for a new job finding one can be tough. The economy is slow, less companies are hiring, and the companies that are hiring may not have what you are looking for. So I jumped into the fray to find what I think are 10 great companies to work for and listed them here(in no particular order), for your viewing enjoyment.

The top 10 websites built with Ruby on Rails

Ruby is a growing force in programming. With that growth we have seen some pretty phenomenal applications developed through it. In this article we will take a look at what are in my opinion the 10 best sites built using Ruby on Rails. So, if you have an idea for a large scale web app, and are considering developing it using the Ruby platform - or you are just curious what it is capable of as a language - read on and be informed. Otherwise, read on for knowledge and entertainment. ;)

The top 10 Ruby on Rails presentations of all time

We’ve scoured the web to bring you the ten very best Ruby on Rails presentations out there. These are not your run of the mill presentations with a boring dude on a microphone droning on for three and a half hours. Instead, these are chock full of great information that will help you learn about Ruby on Rails if you’re new, get insights into programming and the scope of the language, and learn a few helpful tricks along the way.

Rubyphobic? Why some web hosts hide Ruby while others feature it.

In my search to find hosts that support Ruby on Rails I came across something curious. A lot of companies who provide RoR hosting but don’t seem to want anyone to know about it. Parking the words Ruby on Rails somewhere down at the bottom of a page, blended in with other features like, e-mail support. Admittedly there are a growing amount of hosts that support Ruby. But it’s almost as if, in choosing to support the language, they also hope no one notices. So, why, when a host chooses to support Ruby on Rails do they seem reluctant to admit that they support it at all? (minus a few companies)

10 things to look for in a hosting company that "supports" Rails

In addition to the things you'd normally look for in a host, if you're going to be running a Rails app go with a company that offers:

1. Shell/SSH Access
   If you can't get to the command line don't even think about it. So no goDaddy, period.
2. Mod_Rails (Passenger) and/or Mongrel Support
   Rails is way too slow and unstable on cgi, fcgi, etc...
3. The Latest Ruby and Rails Releases
   If they don't update their server fleet quickly it can be a serious security issue.
4. Support Staff Who Know Rails
   Too many companies respond with something like 'that is a scripting question and we're not paid to answer that' — which is lame.
5. Rails Documentation
   If you email support with a question like: 'Help I got a FastCGI: (dynamic) server ... has failed to remain running for 30 seconds error in my apache logs...' and they don't point you to some documentation they have already on the issue. You may want to find another host.
6. Scalability Options
   Do they have plans that meet your future needs if your app gets big? Will they setup a good Rails stack for you on a VPS or dedicated server (even if they don't advertise it)? Will they help you into a multi-server Rails environment if necessary? Can they move your account between boxes/plans seamlessly?
7. Pre-installed Gems
   Its nice to be able to run 'gem unpack BlueCloth' or something and have it already installed on the server.
8. mySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite Databases
   It is extremely helpful and nice to have these options if you're developing apps that soar on (or are designed for) one or the other.
9. Git, Subversion, Trac, and/or Buzilla Hosting.
   Not only are these helpful apps, but its a good sign that the company supports developers.
10. A Website or Applications of Their Own Developed with Rails!
    This is certainly a good sign that they are serious about the framework and its use in a production environment.

Why is a good Rails host hard to find?

The short answer is because it is costly and a huge pain.

It is difficult to operate a hosting company that has the latest Ruby and Rails software installed across your server fleet, to make updates quickly, to answer support questions intelligently about a relatively new framework, to provide good and full documentation for Rails apps, and to maintain reliable uptime on your servers. Most hosting companies are used to operating with PHP/Perl/etc. and aren't used to the problems with Ruby/Rails — which they are being forced to install because Rails is so popular and people are crashing servers with custom installs.

At its core, Rails is designed to be served up in a dedicated environment and runs best with cached ruby, models, pages, etc... sitting in memory ready to spit out data to requesting browsers. This is why Passenger and Mongrel are so dang popular (for good reason!). They make sites load and run faster because they utilize server RAM. So you can see why trying to serve Rails in a huge shared environment is tough: holding hundreds of persistent processes in RAM is impossible.

Shared hosting companies usually pull off the Apache/Passenger stack by simply killing off processes every minute or so and praying that no client actually uses the bandwidth he/she signed up for. Thus, there's no way you can pack as many clients onto a server like you can with PHP/Perl/etc. Loads would go nuts. Servers would crash. Clients would not be happy.

So, if a hosting company takes the financial hit and doesn't crowd their servers and keeps processes killed — they can serve up Rails OK in a more traditional hosting environment.

OK — now that you have an idea about why it is so difficult to serve up Rails, check out what would be the right hosting option for your situation as well as our Rails hosting reviews to find yourself a reliable Rails host and get your app live.

What can you develop with Ruby on Rails?

Well, if you haven't experienced it already, you can essentially write your own cookie-cutter Web 2.0 app (full of all the AJAXy community goodness) more robustly and in much less time (and lines of code) than with any other language or framework.

That is, any database-driven application that you want to fill with all the hottest plugins like Google Maps API and Flickr and such can be done relatively easily. People are busting out with new plugins for Rails everyday. Plus, it really is a joy to code in Ruby with the Rails framework; you'll think to yourself, "why didn't someone come up with years ago? It would have saved me a lot of time."

Why develop with Ruby on Rails?

If you've ever been frustrated by spending more time on the syntax of a particular language than on developing the actual content of your web application, then you should look into Rails. Actually, its better than that. Rails allows you to write less code and get more done in less time. Period.

Many think that Rails is a new "buzz" just because of its integrated AJAX functions and object-oriented database handling. But after developing one Rails app you'll realize that this little framework does much more — it forces a developer to write neater code, segment work-flow, and focus on the implementation of new ideas to get the job done better and faster.

We can talk all day, but see for yourself. Not only is this site (RailsHosting.org) a tiny example of a Rails app, but you can also check out a huge number of other sites using Rails.

You can also observe some neat demos we're working on here, as well as the demos on Thomas Fuch's site.

What is Ruby on Rails?

Ruby is an intuitive, object-oriented scripting language originally created in the 1990s by Yukihiro Matsumoto. Check out www.ruby-lang.org to learn more.

Ruby on Rails is a web application framework written in Ruby. It was created in 2004 by David Heinemeier Hansson and optimized by hundreds of other developers since then. It serves as an authoring environment to facilitate the rapid (and fun!) development of robust web applications. For more information, check out the Ruby on Rails homepage.

What is the right Rails Hosting plan/stack for you?

• Non-existent or in development ('just checking out/testing Rails)
  
  
  • Hosting Plan - Shared
  • Server Stack - Apache/Passenger is great place to start!
  
  
  
• 0 - 100 hits/day
  
  
  • Hosting Plan - Shared
  • Server Stack - Apache/Passenger is more than adequate. If you absolutely need fast page-loads then look into Mongrel or static Passenger instances.
  
  
  
• 100-1,000 hits/day
  
  
  • Hosting Plan - Shared
  • Server Stack - Apache/Passenger (mod_rails) is OK. If you absolutely need fast page-loads then look into Mongrel or static Passenger instances.
  
  
  
• 1,000-2,000 hits/day
  
  
  • Hosting Plan - Shared or Virtual Dedicated
  • Server Stack - Should have Mongrel or static Passenger instances.
  
  
  
• 2,000-5,000 hits/day
  
  
  • Hosting Plan - Virtual Dedicated or Dedicated, depending on bandwidth usage.
  • Server Stack - Go with Apache2/Passenger, use Pound or mod_proxy_balancer to mediate loads to Mongrels if you must.
  
  
  
• 5,000+ hits/day
  
  
  • Hosting Plan - Dedicated server(s)
  • Server Stack - Go with Apache2/Mongrel, use mod_proxy_balancer to mediate loads. Recenter, Passenger has proven suitable in this environment as well.

Ruby on Rails Hosting Reviews

DreamHost Review

 
10:28:11 up 27 days, 57 min,  3 users,  load average: 3.27, 4.64, 5.30

Site5 Review

TextDrive Review

HostingRails Review

RailsPlaygroud Review

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Deploying a Rails App with DreamHost

 
> cd www.domain.com
> rails your_app_name

 
production:
  adapter: mysql
  database: your_database_name
  username: your_database_username
  password: *******
  host: your_mysql_host_name.com
  port: 3306

 
# Include your application configuration below 
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
ActionMailer::Base.server_settings = {
  :address => "domain-of-smtp-host.com",
  :domain => "domain-of-sender.com",
  :port	=> 25,
  :authentication => :login,
  :user_name => "your_user_name",
  :password => "*****" }
ActionMailer::Base.perform_deliveries = true
ActionMailer::Base.raise_delivery_errors = true
ActionMailer::Base.default_charset = "utf-8"

 
ENV[ëRAILS_ENVí] ||= ëproductioní

 
map.connect '', :controller => "your_main_controller_name"

 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]

 
killall -USR1 dispatch.fcgi

 
killall -9 ruby