Big Name Companies Using Ruby on Rails
Woke up this morning to the following email request from the CTO of one of Hashrocket's big, important clients:
Can you give me a list of big name firms that you know are using Ruby on Rails for major projects. Need it by this afternoon for an important meeting with top management.
I scrambled together a response, including some advice from folks that responded to my query on Twitter (thx!) After some reflection, I realized that it would make a good informative blog post.
First of all, lots of people pointed me to http://www.workingwithrails.com/high-profile-organisations, which lists the following firms:
Sing ♫ one of these firms is not like the other ♫ while you're reading :)
- amazon.com
- BBC
- CapGemini
- BPN
- Cisco
- C|Net
- EA (Electronic Arts)
- IBM
- JP Morgan
- NASA
- Oakley
- Oracle
- Siemens
- ♫ ThoughtWorks ♫
- Yahoo!
In addition to the list above, there's a number of companies where I have direct, or reliably indirect knowledge of Rails adoption through my friends and associates:
- John Deere
- New York Times
- NBC
- Barclays
- LA Times
- Chicago Tribune
- Orbitz
- Turner Media
- Limewire
For good measure, I also mentioned http://rails100.pbwiki.com/, which tracks high-traffic consumer-facing websites that corporate-types won't necessarily recognize by name, but that for sure handle millions and millions of visits per day. The top ten list on that page (and corresponding Alexa rankings):
- twitter.com [642 !!?! I thought it would be higher]
- scribd.com [940]
- blingee.com [1170]
- yellowpages.com [1734]
- penny-arcade.com [2069]
- 43things.com [4190]
- kongregate.com [4488]
- pitchforkmedia.com [4740]
- projectpath.com [5041 One of the Basecamp hostnames]
- funnyordie.com [5089]
What big-name companies do you know about where Ruby on Rails is gaining traction and adoption from the grassroots level on up?




Don't forget geni.com
Posted by: wonko | March 20, 2008 at 02:45 AM
How about Chase Manhattan bank? I believe the Ruby on Rails Podcast had an interview with them a while back. That's a good name to throw at people who care about these kinds of things. And, while I wouldn't say they've "adopted" it, I used to work at Adobe, and there are projects being done in Rails there.
Posted by: Chris Bailey | March 20, 2008 at 03:19 AM
Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand's largest government department.
Posted by: Russell | March 20, 2008 at 05:35 AM
Hello, our most recently developed Rails site (launched last October) has (at present) almost 700,000 users.
http://catalogchoice.org
Posted by: Matt Henderson | March 20, 2008 at 07:10 AM
Hey Obie, that WWR list could certainly do with a refresh.
I also noted a while back that LinkedIn were recruiting for a couple of Rails developers but I'm not sure as to what capacity ROR is used in-house.
Also if you've got time on your hands it's worth scanning the company list alphabetically on WWR:
http://workingwithrails.com/browse/companies/name
Theres bound to be a few more new ones now.
Just found Walt Disney for instance:
http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/8832-irfan-baig
But it's always worth mailing to double check as many developers do Ruby/Rails outside of their day job and just because they are listed on WWR doesn't always mean the company is using it.
Posted by: Martin Sadler | March 20, 2008 at 07:30 AM
Us, for the UK Parliament: http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/
Posted by: Robert Brook | March 20, 2008 at 08:36 AM
I'm using Rails at Score! Educational Centers which is a division of Kaplan.
Posted by: Brent Sordyl | March 20, 2008 at 09:23 AM
Add the State of South Carolina to the list!
Posted by: Chris Moore | March 20, 2008 at 09:50 AM
Revolution Health - http://www.revolutionhealth.com/
Posted by: Tamer Salama | March 20, 2008 at 10:01 AM
You are right the twitter statistics should be higher, but most people don't use the website but instead use one of the API applications.
Posted by: Florian | March 20, 2008 at 10:18 AM
RosettaStone.
Posted by: JeffMo | March 20, 2008 at 10:18 AM
Some other relatively high profile Rails sites (or companies with Rails projects cooking):
http://www.revolutionhealth.com/
http://www.hulu.com/
http://www.gaia.com/
We also have about 100 customers - all using Rails and our rails application monitoring software. Mostly startups, but all growing quickly.
Posted by: Dean Cruse | March 20, 2008 at 10:29 AM
The 3 big Telcos in Canada all have considerable ROR projects - Rogers, Bell & Telus
Posted by: Andy | March 20, 2008 at 11:03 AM
We're already mentioned, but I wanted to confirm for a fact that nytimes.com is using Rails for quick-turnaround, news-focused projects. Just released one today, matter of fact, here: http://politics.nytimes.com/clinton-schedules/. Also, another earlier project here: http://2008playoffs.nytimes.com. Both Rails on EC2.
Most of our current Election Guide (http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/election/index.html) and all the results tables/charts you'll see on election nights on the home page and inside utilize Rails, through indirectly.
Posted by: Aron Pilhofer | March 20, 2008 at 11:16 AM
In what capacity is google using rails? I'm curious as everyone says they are strict on languages. I've heard python is popular there but hadn't heard about ruby.
Also, per linkedin, I think there mobile site they just launched is in rails. It uses the sessions/new idiom on the login page.
Posted by: John Nunemaker | March 20, 2008 at 11:26 AM
A good friend of mine is a senior DBA at American Express. AmEx is using Rails for several internal projects, and I believe he told me they are using it for a merchant processing app. From what he says, the RoR projects have been so successful, they are moving several programmers off J2EE to full-time rails development.
Posted by: Raphael | March 20, 2008 at 11:49 AM
Starbucks is also using Rails-based system for tracking and verifying social and environmental impacts of their coffee sources.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward | March 20, 2008 at 11:55 AM
I'm still waiting for the list of what major companies use:
Javascript
Perl
PHP
Get crackin! :)
Posted by: Glen | March 20, 2008 at 12:07 PM
"I'm still waiting for the list of what major companies use:
Javascript
Perl
PHP"
I'd have to assume you're joking as probably every one of the fortune 500 uses Javascript and perl. In reality, the "who uses" isn't really helpful imo. If a company is using rails for a simple little app in a 5 person workgroup, that's significantly different than something performing 100 million transactions in a day.
Posted by: ironchef | March 20, 2008 at 12:12 PM
https://www.btosupportcenter.com/
we also use Rails for all internal applications - currently that's 3 with about 2-3 in the pipeline
Posted by: andy | March 20, 2008 at 12:42 PM
Ruby on Rails is used for some internal systems in Microsoft for Live Search as well, specifically in some of our build tracking systems.
There's not a whole lot of it, but it's there if you know where to look :)
Posted by: Anonymous Microsoftie | March 20, 2008 at 01:11 PM
Gaiam, Inc.
(purveyor of green, organic, yoga/health and conscious living products, among other things; if you shop at Whole Foods or do anything yoga or pilates related you'll know the brand)
We use Ruby on Rails for our social network, Gaia.com - formerly known as Zaadz.com, which we built using Ruby on Rails starting in late 2005.
http://www.gaia.com/
(Dean Cruse: just noticed you already mentioned us - thanks for the link!)
Posted by: Jacob Stetser | March 20, 2008 at 01:26 PM
espn is hiring rails developers in burbank, ca. Anyone interested can find the job posting on monster
I'm assuming that means they are using rails ;)
Posted by: jay | March 20, 2008 at 01:29 PM
I'll add a few things about yellowpages.com. While some sites use Rails for mini one-off projects, yellowpages is now Rails top-to-bottom. However, the performance sensitive portions strip Rails so much it's barely different than merb.
Also, yellowpages.com is owned by AT&T, which everyone has heard of.
Posted by: sandofsky | March 20, 2008 at 01:41 PM
I was interviewed by latimes.com recently for a Rails position. They are porting their portal from java platform to Rails. One of my close friend who works for TCS (largest IT services company in India) says they are getting (and doing) a lot of Rails projects as well. High-end services companies accepting Rails projects is an indication that Rails is indeed breaking into the enterprisy world.
Posted by: subbu | March 20, 2008 at 02:20 PM
eBay is using Rails for microplace.com
Also, WWR now has a high-profile companies page:
http://www.workingwithrails.com/high-profile-organisations
Posted by: josh | March 20, 2008 at 02:44 PM
Dow Jones (namely WSJ.com) uses Rails (not for the main site though)
Posted by: Dean Holdren | March 20, 2008 at 05:29 PM
We're using Rails for some pretty big sites:
http://www.medications.com
http://www.funadvice.com
And some smaller ones:
http://www.snapseeker.com
http://www.rekalls.com
And where I spend most of my time, we use rails significantly for back end processes that push out to static sites. That's millions of pageviews per day.
Posted by: Ericson Smith | March 20, 2008 at 06:05 PM
So I work at a BigCo.
And I put my name in "WWR" with my BigCo. name. Does that make my BigCo. uses Rails?
Posted by: Ted | March 20, 2008 at 06:46 PM
http://www.genetree.com
Posted by: Karmen Blake | March 20, 2008 at 07:03 PM
Sports Illustrated (Time Inc.) uses Rails for FanNation.com a high traffic fan community site. Time also uses Rails on a number of other high traffic sites like DanPatrick.com, Entertainment Weekly's TVFan community site and a handful of People.com sites.
Posted by: Flinn | March 20, 2008 at 09:32 PM
Vonage and Revolution Health are another company using Rails extensively.
Posted by: ChandraB | March 21, 2008 at 07:42 AM
Hey Obie,
it is great to see this post. There has been a lot of debate lately if RoR is going to ever make it to the enterprise. But then, people said the same about Linux :-)
Where do you see RoR going in the next few years? Do you think it will reach the stage where Linux is now?
I am learning RoR out of interest and looking to build a website to try to make a difference in the social sector. Any ideas?
Posted by: Premal | March 21, 2008 at 09:45 AM
Howcast: http://www.howcast.com - would rank 36th on http://rails100.pbwiki.com/ if it were updated with new alexa ranks..
Posted by: Michael | March 22, 2008 at 01:32 AM
i do not think google uses rails at all unless you are talking about the javascript port(ala yegge) which is well, not rails and not ruby. the same way you can count any big companies which are using anything rails-like.
(and as far as i know bbc is using perl and they happen to have a port written in perl)
Posted by: pk11 | March 22, 2008 at 04:22 PM
I used to work at the Indianapolis Star which has a number of Rails apps in production.
www.indymoms.com (some of this is Drupal, but a lot of it is Rails)
www.indypaws.com
www.indy.com
The Star is owned by Gannett. I would imagine other Gannett properties will be starting some Rails projects judging by the success of the Star's efforts.
I current work at Vail Systems (www.vailsystems.com). And, we are in the process of porting all of our core services to a Rails application.
Posted by: Fred Lee | March 26, 2008 at 10:33 AM
And http://www.wellcare.com, which gets very nice traffic on Rails, has been deployed since September of 2007.
Posted by: Brian Ketelsen | March 26, 2008 at 12:36 PM
I have worked on Rails applications for Greenpeace and Prada.
Posted by: Norbert Crombach | March 27, 2008 at 11:52 AM
While not used for any major projects (that I know of), BT has a few sites built using Rails:
http://web21c.bt.com
http://mojo.bt.com
http://magicnumber.bt.com
Posted by: Kerry Buckley | March 29, 2008 at 08:30 AM
AOL has several apps running Rails at the moment:
http://ficlets.com
http://circavie.com
http://pixnay.com
http://photos.aim.com
I know of one large back-office system on Rails inside of AOL, and there will probably be a couple more public-facing Rails apps launching in the next year.
Posted by: Kevin Lawver | March 30, 2008 at 03:21 PM
We use RoR for www.guidespot.com at Local Matters Inc.
Posted by: Brian Doyle | March 30, 2008 at 03:55 PM
It may have already been mentioned but aren't http://www.github.com and http://www.lighthouseapp.com both run on rails?
Posted by: Mitchell Blankenship | March 30, 2008 at 05:46 PM
How did we miss http://www.slideshare.net ?
Cleartrip(an Indian travel search firm) also uses RoR a lot. http://www.cleartrip.com/smallworld
http://www.cleartrip.com/trains
http://www.cleartrip.com/forums
etc
Posted by: Piyush | March 30, 2008 at 09:38 PM
Apple has a nice Rails following internally, as well as supporting Rails heavily in Mac OS X Server 10.5:
http://developer.apple.com/tools/developonrailsleopard.html
http://developer.apple.com/tools/customizeonrailsleopard.html
http://developer.apple.com/tools/deployonrailsleopard.html
Posted by: Little Birdy | March 31, 2008 at 01:18 AM
WOW! What an awesome list. I know ROR was huge but had no idea what a career booster Rails might offer me. I am going to spend a few more hours in the rails books mostly because it's just fun to learn. Ruby and Rails is a blast! jonathan
Posted by: Jonathan | March 31, 2008 at 11:59 AM
Adding another company to the list Globallogic. They have around 2500 head count so it is a relatively big company, around 3-4 projects are being developed on ROR.
Posted by: RD | March 31, 2008 at 01:12 PM
http://www.near-time.com
Posted by: DB | March 31, 2008 at 11:33 PM
Do not forget the high traffic site http://www.fotolog.com.ar
Posted by: pablete | April 02, 2008 at 11:06 AM
www.streamsend.com - top site for sending official spam!
Not really a posterchild though. The site is so painfully slow I suspect they are running it in dev mode sometimes.
Posted by: si | April 02, 2008 at 11:09 AM
Hello,
This is David Neff over at the American Cancer Society. I think we sould be on your list for using Ruby on Rails. We just launched a User Generated Web Community for people to tell their story about Cancer. Our entire registration system (including OpenID integration) was done in ROR. We love the language and the time is saved us. Would love to talk to you more about it if your interested. We even talk about ROR in our press release.
http://www.sharinghope.tv/socialmediarelease
Let me know if you would like to interview us or anything else. We want to spread the word!
Posted by: David Neff | April 02, 2008 at 12:47 PM
I was shocked to find a Rails project at Chrysler when I was working there. Up til that point, I'd only seen Struts and Domino (and of course ancient COBOL programs).
I would also mention Oracle.
Posted by: Brandon Zylstra | April 03, 2008 at 03:13 AM
Thanks, Obie, for the excellent list. Good stuff there, and a good reminder to many to update their info at WorkingWithRails.
As a couple of previous commenters noted, LinkedIn Mobile is, indeed, a Rails app. We're also using Rails in a number of other places, both internal and external.
Oh, and we're looking for a couple more developers. =D Job posts will go up early next week; in the meantime, if you're a Rails dev looking for a gig, drop me a line.
--j
Site: http://m.linkedin.com/
Blog: http://blog.linkedin.com/blog/2008/03/linkedin-mobile.html
Posted by: Jim Meyer | April 04, 2008 at 01:27 PM
We here at XING use Rails for some major parts of our plattform. All the internal development team consist of Rails developers. And, of course, we are always looking for people: http://www.xing.com/marketplace/postings/show/255443
If you want to do Rails in Europe, don't hesitate to write me an message. Find me on XING.
Posted by: Norman Timmler | April 06, 2008 at 08:24 AM
British Telecom (BT), the largest telecom in Europe, used Rails to build its Web Services portal (http://web21c.bt.com/).
Posted by: Anonymous | April 06, 2008 at 12:34 PM
Zappos.com is working on a RoR implementation.
Posted by: bondibox | April 08, 2008 at 08:28 PM
I've a requirement on ruby on rails for Mysore location on contract basis.
Please refer your friends if they are looking for a change.
Thanks
Naren
JNET Technologies Pvt Ltd
ndevarapalli@jnettechnologies.com
+91-40-2331 6932
+91-99660 22242
Posted by: Naren | April 22, 2008 at 09:37 AM
also www.picanswers.com was developed in Rails and launched Feb 2008
Posted by: Marcio Castilho | April 24, 2008 at 02:26 PM
http://www.CustomInk.com, a site for custom t-shirts and decorated products, uses Rails for it's customer facing web site. We're also hiring RoR developers for our backend applications.
Posted by: David Filiatrault | May 01, 2008 at 10:22 PM
Miley Cyrus's fan club uses rails: www.mileyworld.com.
Posted by: Brian Burridge | May 02, 2008 at 11:26 AM
Miley Cyrus? Now that's scaling!
Posted by: Brad | May 06, 2008 at 06:12 PM