Ruby is a dynamic, open-source programming language known for its simplicity and productivity, making it a favorite for web development. It is an object-oriented language, which allows developers to handle data as objects with attributes and methods, fostering code organization and reusability. Ruby's syntax is designed to be intuitive and straightforward, emphasizing human readability and minimizing code redundancy. The language is also versatile and extensible, supporting features like metaprogramming and multithreading. A significant part of its popularity stems from Ruby on Rails, a robust web application framework that follows the model-view-controller (MVC) architecture, providing developers with a streamlined environment to build database-backed web applications rapidly. Its vibrant ecosystem includes gems (libraries) that extend functionality for everything from testing to UI development. Ruby encourages a principle known as "convention over configuration," which leads to software with fewer lines of code, quicker development times, and adherence to best practices by default.

View the most prominent open source Ruby projects in the list below. Click on a specific project to view its alternative or complementary packages.