So many, many times this past year, I’ve thought to myself, ‘Holy cow, things are moving so fast.’ This is as true in the wider tech world, as it is in the Ruby community. These are exciting times.

Ruby 4.0.0 is days away, the Ruby website and documentation just got awesome new rebrands, and there are constant updates to the Rails framework.

But we’ve also watched this year as companies built on Rails grow and adapt to a new (and constantly shifting) AI landscape in fascinating ways. There are new startups choosing Rails every day, new projects and gems taking shape, new folks joining the community, new conversations, new collaborations, new books being published, new events popping up all over the world.

Things are happening, left, right and center, and at times the pace feels breathless. You all just…don’t stop shipping.

You are building, experimenting, and scaling, and the Rails Foundation is here for it.

Keep running, and we will be there, cheering you all on.

Here’s what kept the Rails Foundation running alongside you in 2025:

We launched a podcast. (Education - Marketing)

On Rails is hosted by Robby Russell and features deep conversation focused on the technical decisions, architectural trade-offs, and long-term thinking behind building and maintaining Ruby on Rails applications. In season one, Robby spoke to Rosa Gutierrez, Jean Boussier, Nadia Odunayo, Ryan Stawarz, Austin Story, Hilary Stohs-Krause, Florent Beaurain, Alexander Stathis, Miguel Conde, Peter Compernolle, Kayla Reopelle, and Jay Tennier. It’s a wonder he still has a voice.

On Rails is hosted on Buzzsprout, and edited by Anuschka Laubscher. Find it on all major podcast platforms, and subscribe to be notified when the next episodes drop, because Robby has some great guests lined up for you in 2026.

Work on the Rails Guides continued. (Documentation)

This year, 12 guides were updated and we started work to improve the SEO of the Ruby on Rails website, thanks to the efforts of Ridhwana Khan, Bhumi Shah, Harriet Oughton, Petrik de Heus, the team at Ranker Studios, and the many, many folks in the community who helped by reviewing the PRs. Only a few more guides to go before we can wrap this work up in 2026.

We shipped two new tutorials and a new tutorial page. (Education)

When we revamped the Getting Started guide in 2024, we changed the demo app from a blog to an e-commerce site, giving us a better starting point to expand the tutorial over time and allow beginners to continue learning by adding new real-world features to their app. Chris Oliver continued that work this year with two additional tutorials: Sign Up & Settings and User Wishlists. Find them both on the new Tutorial landing page, which also landed this year with help from John Athayde and Naijeria Toweett: rubyonrails.org/docs/tutorials.

We shipped another Rails case study. (Marketing - Documentation)

The newest Rails case study in the series highlights how and why Cookpad migrated to Rails in 2007. Find it here.

This case study was a collaborative effort made possible by Miles Woodroffe from Cookpad, Robby Russell from Planet Argon, the Cookpad engineering leadership team, and John Athayde from Meticulous.

A lot of work across a number of teams goes into these case studies, and while they are not fast and easy to write, these stories help demonstrate the decision-making behind choosing Rails, and the real-world impact of Rails across different industries and organizations of all sizes. We’ll have another one coming in 2026, so stay tuned.

We supported regional Rails events. (Events)

This year we sponsored Rails Girls São Paulo (Brazil) and Rails Girls Cali (Colombia), and partnered with Tropical on Rails to make sure there were a batch of sponsored tickets set aside for local devs who might not have been able to get a ticket otherwise.

All three are events run by teams doing fantastic work to promote Rails in South America, and we were happy to support their efforts this year.

We put a lot of focus on video this year. (Education - Marketing)

The Rails YouTube channel is growing and the content is expanding. This year we published the Rails New series with Typecraft, we continued the Rails in Focus series with three new videos, and we started experimenting with YouTube shorts.

We also started recording a new series with Rails maintainers and community members about what Rails is - the people who make it, the rules that guide it, and the community that uses it. Expect the pilot episode to drop in January.

Big shout out to Chris Power, Robert Beene, Harriet Oughton, Emmanuel Hayford, Carolina Cabral, and Anuschka Laubscher on the work that went into preparing, recording, and editing these different series.

We produced the third Rails World and launched the Rails at Scale Summit. (Events - Marketing - Education - Community)

This year we returned to Amsterdam where 825 attendees joined us for the third Rails World and the very first Rails at Scale Summit.

Rails World is our flagship annual event, where more than a year of preparation culminates into a whirlwind week of making sure all attendees, speakers, and sponsors have the best combined experience. We had a lot of fun this year, and we hope you did too.

Read the Rails World 2025 recap here, in case you missed it. A big, final thank you to this year’s production and volunteer teams, as well as a shout out to Jomiro Eming, Gaia Putrino, Inez Alvergne, Amani Jones, Beatriz Mitre, Theodora Ntoka, and Bram Janssen for their help on the event.

Marco Roth won the 2025 Rails Luminary award. (Community)

And finally, as one of the last orders of business this year, the Rails Core team and the Rails Foundation announced Marco Roth as the Rails Luminary for 2025 for his unique vision and work on improving the Rails view layer.

Core member Xavier Noria traveled to Zurich to announce the news to Marco during the Rails Höck meetup at the Renuo offices in person (video here).

The Rails Foundation continues to grow.

All of the work that listed above is thanks to the ongoing support of our members who show up time and time again for the Ruby community in a multitude of ways.

This year that number grew by seven more companies.

Judge.me joined the Core members of the Rails Foundation, with co-founder and Chief Architect Linh Dam joining the board. The board also welcomed new directors Whitney Imura (GitHub) and Gabi Stefanini (Shopify), and we’d like to extend a sincere thank you to Neha Batra and Duncan Davidson, who previously served as directors, for their time and contributions while on the board.

And finally, we welcomed Saeloun, Clio, Higher Pixels, Chime, Fullscript, and SerpApi as Contributing members this year.

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So, what’s up next in 2026?

All of the efforts above will continue, and we are deep in 2026 planning right now with even more ideas on how to further our mission. But for now, here’s what we know for sure is coming (and where we are looking for help):

• Rails World 2026 and the Rails at Scale Summit will take place in September in Austin. Read some preliminary information here, and if your company wants to support, you can find the sponsorship prospectus here.
• Brazil, India, and Japan are home to some of the most active Rails communities in the world. While it would be exciting to host a Rails World in each of these regions, we believe the most meaningful way to support Rails globally is by partnering with local organizers who understand their communities, cultures, and local Rails ecosystems best. So this year, the Rails Foundation is proud to support Tropical on Rails in Brazil, Deccan Queen on Rails - a new event coming to Pune, India, and Kaigi on Rails in Japan.
• Due to a change on the documentation team, we are looking for one more writer to join and help us finalize the work in 2026. If you have experience writing technical documentation and are available for approximately 10 hours a week in 2026, please get in touch.
• We are also looking specifically for someone to write an Accessibility guide for Rails apps. We have an outline started, but would prefer someone with direct experience to help write this new guide. If that’s you, please get in touch for a chat.

Stay tuned for all of that and more in 2026. As always, our suggestion box is open.

That’s a wrap on 2025.

For now, here’s wishing everyone in the Rails community a fantastic end to 2025!

Amanda

Rails Foundation