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I'm looking to get a snapshot of Rails 3 at this point in time. We're about to start a new long term project, and I'm wondering if R3 is ready for real use. Or, if there are still a lot of bumps to be worked out. E.g. I saw questions about its compatibility with Passenger. (?)


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3 Answers

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Rails 3 is very much ready for production use. It's in use on big sites like Shopify (you can read about their long path to Rails 3 here: http://blog.shopify.com/2010/11/16/our-upgrade-to-rails-3).

I've recently upgraded my own Rails 2.3.x app to Rails 3, and it runs fine on Passenger. I didn't encounter any compatibility problems with Passenger 3 and the site has been running on Rails 3 + Passenger for about a month now with no problems.

Since you're starting a new project, I'd strongly recommend you start on Rails 3 because frankly the upgrade to Rails 3 can be quite painful like Shopify's story.

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We upgraded our project, it was awfully painful. –  Kieran Senior Dec 17 '10 at 8:49
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Yes Rails 3 is ready for production. Many sites are already using it in production. The compatibility issue is because Rails 3 is using Rack, Passenger will treat Rails 3 apps as Rack apps when it sees config.ru in the application root directory.

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Thanks for the answer. Any sites in particular you know about? Also, your note about Passenger: does that mean it will or won't work? –  Dogweather Dec 11 '10 at 0:51
I don't know many big websites that are using it. But answers.37signals.com is using Rails 3. It will still work but it treats it as Rack app. –  jpartogi Dec 11 '10 at 4:59
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What is your current rails experience?

  • If you have prior rails experience and you want to get something out quickly, I'd go with what you know, so Rails 2, and only port afterwards.
  • If just starting out and no previous experience, I'd go for Rails 3. You would be better off learning the new thing immediately. There's a great rails tutorial out there.

I'm quite confident that Rails 3 is in good shape, though there's bound to be some kinks left and there is new stuff to learn which might slow you down a bit at first.

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