A Developer's Return to Ruby on Rails in 2026: Reflections on Framework Evolution and Developer Experience
By
stanislavb
Baker's choice. Dense with flavour, light on filler.
Summary
The article is a personal reflection on returning to Ruby on Rails for a side project in 2026 after years of working with other technologies. The author, a developer in a covers band, needed a solution for managing setlists and song notes, which led them to build a web application. They discuss their journey from initially using Rails, moving to other technologies like Node.js and Go, and then returning to Rails. The piece explores Rails' evolution, its current state in 2026, the developer experience, and why it remains a compelling choice for web development despite newer alternatives. The author shares technical insights about Rails 8 features, deployment options, and the framework's philosophy of developer happiness and productivity.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledI love a good side-project. Like most geeks, I have a tendency to go down rabbit holes when faced with problems - give me a minor inconvenience and I'll happily spend weeks building something far more elaborate than the situation warrants.
Building things just for the sheer hell of it, as Richard Feynman put it 'The Pleasure of Finding Things Out'.
Rails has always been about developer happiness and productivity, and in 2026, that philosophy feels more relevant than ever.
The framework that once felt like magic now feels like a well-oiled machine - still magical, but with the rough edges smoothed out and the sharp corners rounded off.
Returning to Rails felt like coming home - familiar but improved, comfortable but modern, and still delivering that magical developer experience that first drew me to web development.
