[prea]

It's true that there are many more choices to make for a JS SPA compared to RoR but isn't this just a fixed cost? Pick once and then stick to it. Use the same things for your next project. Done.

I'd venture to guess that for a RoR newbie, it takes just as much time to understand the 'glue' (I've heard people refer to it as 'magic') that makes it all work together behind the scenes.

[tobyjsullivan]

This aligns with my experience. It’s also a classic case of picking the right tool for the job.

I think RoR is an easy choice for anyone looking to ship some variation of a basic CRUD app. Trying to do anything interesting (read: competitive in today’s SaaS market), however, becomes a chore in reading source code to understand undocumented “magic” and fighting the framework. Use Rails if you ship many different CRUD apps or a CRUD app that is just a frontend to your services business (your “real” product).

On the other hand, learning how to bootstrap a proper JS (ideally TS) app is a job for someone with time and experience. Even then, not all answers are satisfactory. The benefit is the full power of modern web is unlocked. Use JS if you’re trying to build a company that will live or die on a single SaaS product.

Every company I’ve worked at falls squarely into the “single, innovative SaaS product” category. The ones that have started on Rails always tack React on top and then it’s just a world of hurt as the complexity gets out of control.

[dataminded]

You have to know enough about the choices and their edge cases to make good choices. You are also at the mercy of all of those choices continuing to evolve in complementary ways in the future.