Ruby on Rails (RoR) or rails is an open source web development framework. Since its release in 2004, RoR has revolutionized the web development process. There has been a rapid increase in its user base with more and more companies using RoR based applications. In the year 2006, Rails won the Jolt award for the best web development tool.

Despite its high growth rate, there are still speculations regarding the extent to which Rails can be used as a web development tool. Companies still adopt traditional methods of web development using less sophisticated languages.

The diffidence towards the framework can be justified as RoR is still in its budding phase and is yet to prove buzzwords like “efficiency” and “stability”. Plus RoR is not used widely by large enterprises. In spite of all that rails still has numerous aspects that upholds its status as the best web development tool.

RoR is open source, free of cost. This is almost always the first criteria checked by enterprises while deploying a language for its applications. RoR provides most of the facilities provided by java, .NET and other web development languages.

The biggest advantage is that Rails permits a quicker launch time. Site development takes only half the time taken by other languages. This is due to the availability of plug-ins and reduced code redundancy. Modification is easier and faster. Maintenance and site development costs are less making the adoption of rails a cost effective approach.

Rails offer various user friendly features and modular approach to site development. Various features facilitate bulk uploading, on the go photo sizing/cropping, custom prizing algorithms, content management and easy database management making Ruby On Rails the ideal choice for E-commerce sites, membership and social networking sites and content and database management applications. On top of all this, RoR has a vibrant developer community that is extremely active in solving the problems faced by Rails users.

Companies using Rails benefit from the speed and agility with which applications are built.  High end applications require less investment for development and maintenance. The documentation is good and the framework allows automated testing. In short it is a speedy, yet, cost effective web development tool.

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