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