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Last updated 2 October 2013
This is a website and GitHub repository for open source Ruby on Rails example applications.
The example applications include Ruby on Rails introductions for beginners as well as examples for experienced developers. Each application is accompanied by a detailed tutorial. Support for the project, including the example applications and helpful free articles, comes from subscribers to the RailsApps tutorials.
New to Rails? See What is Ruby on Rails?, the book Learn Ruby on Rails, and recommendations for a Rails tutorial.
Follow the project on Twitter: rails_apps. Tweet some praise if you like what you’ve found.
“Thanks so much for this. There are so many Rails tutorials for absolute beginners, and lots of stuff that assumes expert knowledge, but not much, besides practice, to span the gap.” — Rick Quantz, HackerNews, 13 May 2011
“I would like to say thank you for such a precise guide. It helped me understand how things work a great deal quicker than all of the bits and pieces I was reading around the web.” — Justin Booth
“@danielkehoe is somewhat of a hero with the stuff he puts on @github” — Warwick Poole, Twitter, 2 July 2011
“Crazy Deep” — Peter Cooper, Ruby Weekly, 19 May 2011
Use the Rails Composer tool to generate any of the examples as a starter app. Then customize the code for a complete working Rails web application.
Each example is an open source project. Dozens of developers use the apps, report problems as they arise, and propose solutions as GitHub issues. Rails changes frequently; each application is known to work and serves as your personal “reference implementation” so you can stay up to date. Each is accompanied by a tutorial so there is no mystery code. The tutorials are available to subscribers; subscriptions support the project.
| Examples for Rails 4.0 | Tutorial | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Learn Rails | Learn Ruby on Rails | introduction to Rails for beginners |
| Rails and Bootstrap | Tutorial | starter app for Rails and Twitter Bootstrap |
| Examples for Rails 3.2 | Tutorial | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Twitter Bootstrap, Devise, CanCan | Tutorial | Devise for authentication, CanCan for authorization, Twitter Bootstrap for CSS |
| Rails Membership Site with Stripe | Tutorial | Site with subscription billing using Stripe |
| Rails Membership Site with Recurly | Tutorial | Site with subscription billing using Recurly |
| Startup Prelaunch Signup App | Tutorial | For a startup prelaunch signup site |
| Devise, RSpec, Cucumber | Tutorial | Devise for authentication with ActiveRecord and SQLite for a database |
| Devise, Mongoid | Tutorial | Devise for authentication with a MongoDB datastore |
| OmniAuth, Mongoid | Tutorial | OmniAuth for authentication with a MongoDB datastore |
| Subdomains, Devise, Mongoid | Tutorial | Basecamp-style subdomains with Devise and MongoDB |
Our in-depth articles provide additional background and detail.