Which are the most useful Rails gems to use in Rails? We will have a look at a number of rails gem you can use today. What is Rails? Ruby on Rails is an open-source web framework, which means the code is available to the public for free to examine, use, modify and distribute. So why are organizations choosing to implement it? Ruby on Rails has many advantages over other frameworks. These include security benefits, rapid web development, decoupled components, reduced dependencies and simple maintenance processes. It supports open source libraries that provide all the functionality out-of-the-box for common tasks such as email notifications. Moreover, developers who work with Ruby on Rails are able to take advantage of their expertise in Ruby and software engineering in general.

Top Useful Rails Gems To Use

1. ActiveRecord

ActiveRecord is an object-relational mapping (ORM) library that makes it easier for developers to work with database tables and to design and implement applications using Ruby on Rails. It is a layer on top of the database and allows developers to interact with the database using Ruby objects. This makes it possible for developers to use virtually any object as a database column, which increases flexibility and reduces development labor. One of the main reasons why organizations choose to implement ActiveRecord in their projects is because it can be used with any SQL dialect. However, before ActiveRecord can be used in your project, you need to have a working version of Postgres installed which consists of three components: PostgreSQL, pg_config, PostgresSQL itself.

2. Slim

Slim is a template pre-processor that extends the basic functionality of Ruby. The framework makes it easier to use all the features offered by ERB, which is the default templating language for Ruby. Slim helps developers who are trying to convert existing HTML scripts into functional templates compatible with pre-processors. To implement Slim in your project, you need to install the following packages:

3. Mustache

Mustache is a logic-less template language focused on ease of reading and writing tags while supporting logic for developers who wish to add it. However, using Mustache requires implementing additional components in your project including Handlebars, which can be used for scoping and partials or data imported from other sources.

4. Action Mailer

Mailer is a component for sending emails. It allows you to send emails to your users and create transactional or informative messages. You can use it to send email using specific templates, whether batch or on the fly.

5. Redis Rails

Redis is a high-performance key-value data store for storing small pieces of information in cache and temporary storage. It can be used as a data structure server with hashes. The benefits are that you can have fast access to millions of values without being tied to the amount of memory your application uses, that it scales well when loading more objects, and that it’s very easy to handle errors when accessing objects in memory.

6. Postgres

Postgres is the relational database management system (RDBMS) used by ActiveRecord. Combined with ActiveRecord, it provides rapid application development and features more functionality than you can find otherwise in more popular web application platforms such as MySQL.

7. Pry

Pry is a monitoring system that makes it easier to track down the logs for any Ruby or Rails project. It provides tools to manage your logs, including parsing, filtering and displaying the information. The advantage is that it provides insight into your application statistics so you can see at a glance what you can do to improve performance.

8. Capistrano

Capistrano is a deployment tool used for deploying web applications written in Ruby on Rails. It allows you to deploy your application without having to log into the server every time an update needs to be made.

9. Better Errors

Better Errors is a plugin for Ruby on Rails to provide the familiar red errors you see when deploying your software. It makes it easier to find and understand errors. The framework helps developers improve security, monitor error rates, detect specific routes by inspecting HTTP requests, and format errors in highly readable ways. Ruby on Rails development efforts are faster, the standard of quality is higher and overall productivity increases with Better Errors.

10. Sidekiq

Sidekiq is a background job processing library designed for Ruby on Rails applications. It allows you to add background jobs from anywhere in the application, including from within Active Job classes, Queue Adapters or individual classes. This means that developers can add their own queueing logic without needing any additional code changes.

11. CanCanCan

CanCanCan is a plugin for Ruby on Rails that allows developers to have multiple unified views for partials, which are templates used in the code. It also provides you with logic that will be executed whenever any of these templates are called, making it easy to perform partial actions.

12. ChartKick

Chartkick is a browser-based charting library that allows you to display data in the form of graphs or diagrams. It provides support for many different chart types, including Bar Graphs, Line Graphs, Pie Charts and Bubble Charts. The advantage is that you can use it if you need an alternative to using Excel or Balsamiq (which are not web-based).

13. Devise

Devise is a robust form authentication solution for Ruby on Rails applications. It allows you to easily create and manage users, authenticate them, reset their passwords, block access based on the level of authentication the user has received and more. It’s one of the most basic features that every application needs to have before it can be launched successfully.

14. RSpec

RSpec is a testing library for Ruby that provides an easy way to measure code functionality. It uses examples based on human language instead of syntax or code patterns. This makes it easier for developers to read test cases, which increases productivity and reduces coding errors when translating specifications into real-life solutions.

15. Optimism

Optimism is a Ruby on Rails plugin that gives you real time validations for incoming data. It provides you with a series of tools and built-in solutions that will allow developers to validate and validate the data they receive from the user.

16. ActiveJob

ActiveJob is an event-based background job processing library for Ruby on Rails applications for handling jobs between multiple jobs, including managing jobs based on form submission, AJAX calls or other actions that are triggered by user interactions or processes that are part of your application.

17. Rubocop

Rubocop can help you check your Ruby on Rails code for style errors. It makes it easier for developers to write clean, consistent and testable code. The advantages are that you can have a clear picture of the quality of your code and how it’s changing over time.

18. Carrierwave

Carrierwave is a gem which lets you easily send emails from within your application using templates or views provided by CarrierWave. It even allows you to use links within emails, making it easy for users to take actions beyond what’s possible in the email itself.

19. Hiredis

Hiredis is a gem to work with custom database implementations. For example, you can use MySQL natively in your application without any extra configuration. It also allows you to do bulk inserts into existing tables or indexes.

20. Webpacker

Webpacker is a gem that lets you use Rails to create single-page applications. With Webpack, you can use the same stylesheets, stylesheets and asset pipeline rules in your application. Another advantage is that it simplifies work related to bundling, minification and concatenation of assets when they are sent to production.

21. Redis

Redis is a Ruby gem to work with a key-value store. You can use it in your application to implement queues, caches and more. When running multiple tasks at the same time, Redis lets you scale and distribute data in real time and in real space.

22. Friendly Id

Friendly Id is a gem to handle friendly urls. It makes it easier for users to remember the URL of your application, which means that it’s easier for them to remember what you do or where they can find information about your website.
A typical task when working with Rails is to generate ids that are specific to the user’s account in an application.

23. Paperclip

Paperclip is a gem that lets you attach files to the models in your Rails application. This can be used for attaching documents, images and other files to blog posts, product reviews and any other content you create to offer your users. It allows you to easily upload files from within your applications, use different file formats and determine the maximum upload size.

24. Carrierwave PDF

Carrierwave PDF is a gem that allows you to generate PDF versions of image attachments like scanned documents or pictures taken with a digital camera. It provides support for generating reports for various types of documents, including invoices, product catalogs and receipts. You can then sell these documents or keep them in your application’s database as part of your historical records.

25. Bullet

Bullet is a Ruby on Rails gem that lets you detect queries that can be optimized. It uses a custom DSL to detect the queries that you’ve used most often and offers suggestions on how to improve your application’s performance.

24. Haml

Haml is a lightweight markup language for generating HTML documents. It’s mainly useful for Rails to handle the creation of HTML view templates for various types of requests, including blog posts, products and many others. You can use it to implement all kinds of layouts that are used throughout your application, including products that are created by the user or products that are shipped via carriers.

25. Omniaouth Discover

OmniAuth_Discover is a gem that let’s you generate JSON Web Tokens for your application in real time. Once activated, it will use the supplied secret to automatically create JWTs when the user logs in to the application. This makes it easier for users to sign up with your application and use it without having to provide any other information besides their email address or social media credentials.

26. Factory Girl

Factory Girl is a Ruby on Rails gem that allows you to easily create fake test data for your application. For testing purposes, you can create fake data for creating users, products, orders and other types of content that has to be managed by your application. This makes it easier to test the different actions of the user’s interface without having to worry about validating or processing real data.

27. Journey

Journey is a Ruby on Rails gem that routes requests based on the current state of the user. You can use it to handle cases when users change pages, and also handle requests that are triggered by actions such as pressing a button, sending an email or sending a social media message. It allows you to easily direct different types of requests to the appropriate page based on how you want your application to function.

28. Puma

Puma is a gem for web servers in Ruby on Rails applications. It gives you all the features that you would expect from an advanced server, including support for HTTP 1, 2 and websocket connections. It can also handle more than one application server, which makes it a good choice for testing and development purposes.

29. Shoulda Matchers

Shoulda Matchers is a gem to handle common validations in your Ruby on Rails applications, such as checking if the user has validated their email address or password. It also offers support for validating URL routes and checking if they return correct data.

30. Fog

Fog is a Ruby gem that lets you connect your app to cloud storage services like Amazon S3 and Google Storage. You can use it in apps that need to store files, images and other content in the cloud, and then retrieve it at any time when it’s needed by the user or your application.

31. Rolify

Rolify is a Ruby on Rails gem that lets you create role-based access control for your applications. It uses the rules you define to determine which permissions are granted to each of your users. Rolify makes it possible for you to easily allow access to users based on the roles they are assigned, whether you are creating an application for employees only, or restricting user access based on their role in the company.

Conclusion

The benefits of using Ruby on Rails are many, but the most important is its relative ease of use. It’s easy to set up an application that is capable of handling most business processes, and can be made excellent with excellent features that are included in the Ruby on Rails ecosystem. We looked at some of the best Ruby on Rails gems available , which you can use to make your applications even better.

Take advantage of these great gems!

Read an interesting article on how to build microservices.