Ruby on Rails application development.
Most of our projects fall in this category: building a Ruby on Rails application from concept to deployment. We start with your objectives, set up staging on the first day, and ship in small pieces you can review. For mobile and front end we use React Native and React.
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Projects delivered
2011
Building only in Rails since
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Clients we have built for
A new application is judged by more than its features. We treat delivery as part of the product, so clear release notes, predictable deployments and a steady cadence of improvements come with the code. By the time you are ready for production, the process already feels routine.
The goal is not clever code. It is code your developers can understand six months from now without needing an archaeologist.
What you get
- A staging environment from the first day, deployed to continuously
- Work broken into small, reviewable pieces with unit tests and code review
- Performance hotspots (slow queries, N+1s, background jobs, caching, error rates) monitored as the app grows
- Clear release notes and predictable deployments
- Lovewick: Rails web app plus a React Native app, built iteratively, now used by more than 250,000 couples
- CareGeneral: a HIPAA compliant care platform, built and grown over years
- numberF: Rails, PostgreSQL and adaptive bitrate video streaming
“We went from an idea and some mock-ups to a beautiful, App Store ready React Native app in the span of months.”
A first version, a rebuild, or a product that has to scale.
A first version
Some clients engage us to build a functional prototype in a few weeks, to put in front of users and investors.
A long-term team
With others, we become their entire development team for years after the initial engagement.
Hard requirements
Some applications need to be HIPAA compliant, like CareGeneral. Others scale to massive size with complex payment processing, like Gumroad.
Not sure whether to build new or fix what you have? A code audit is the cheaper first step.
We adapt to how your team works, not the other way around.
Whether you use GitHub or GitLab, Linear or Jira, daily stand-ups or asynchronous updates, we fit into your existing process. The same goes for coding conventions, testing practices, and code reviews.
We work in your repositories, and you own everything we build. Our goal is to become an extension of your engineering team, not introduce another process for you to manage.
“Ultimately, the project was completed on time with high test coverage and stability. We are consistently building on the foundation they laid.”
Jack Collins, Co-founder and CTO, Demoflow
Objectives first, staging on day one.
The sequence we follow on most projects.
- 01
Agree the objectives
What problem are we solving, for whom, and what does success look like in plain terms. We also agree early which parts are must-have and which are nice-to-have, and where to be opinionated versus flexible. A little alignment up front prevents weeks of rework later.
- 02
Walk through user flows and wireframes
They do not need to be fancy. We have worked from hand-drawn wireframes on paper and from polished Figma files. The point is that every team member is building the same thing.
- 03
Set up staging on the first day
We deploy continuously to a staging environment from day one, so stakeholders see a real working application rather than guessing what has been done.
- 04
Ship in small, reviewable pieces
Unit tests, consistent code review and a steady focus on readability. For lightweight projects GitHub issues are enough. For teams with an established workflow we fit into Trello, Asana, Linear, JIRA or whatever you use.
- 05
Watch performance as we go
Slow queries, N+1 issues, background jobs, caching and error rates are monitored as the app grows. Minor fixes applied continuously beat a painful performance project right before launch.
Four applications, built this way.
01Lovewick
RailsReact NativeA couples app built iteratively on Rails, deliberately light at first, with a React Native app that went from mock-ups to App Store ready in months. More than 250,000 couples use it.
Read the case study →
02CareGeneral
RailsReact NativeHIPAAA HIPAA compliant platform to coordinate home based care, on Rails for the web and React Native for mobile, built and grown over years.
Read the case study →
03numberF
RailsPostgreSQLReact NativeStreaming digital art to TVs. Rails and PostgreSQL, HTML5 video with Zencoder encoding, an adaptive bitrate streaming system, and a React Native app for iOS and Android.
Read the case study →
04Gumroad
RailsPaymentsStripe and PayPal integrations so creators could use their own accounts, plus the move from RequireJS to webpack, for a company that had one person working on the product.
Read the case study →
Questions about building with us.
What do you need from us to start?
Your objectives in plain terms and whatever you have on user flows. Wireframes can be hand drawn. If a wireframe does not exist yet we work through the flows with you on calls, as we did with Gumroad.
Which project management tools do you work in?
Yours. Whether you use GitHub or GitLab, Linear or Jira, daily stand-ups or asynchronous updates, we fit into your existing process. We work in your repositories, and you own everything we build.
How do we see progress?
On staging. We set up a staging environment on the first day of the project and deploy to it continuously, so you review a working application rather than a status report.
Do you build the mobile app too?
Yes, with React Native. Lovewick, numberF and CareGeneral all pair a Rails backend with a React Native app we built. Because React Native is cross-platform, numberF shipped on iOS and Android without separate Objective-C/Swift and Java apps.
Can you build a HIPAA compliant application?
Yes. CareGeneral, a platform to coordinate home based care, is a HIPAA compliant application we built on Rails and React Native.
What happens after launch?
Either we continue as your development team, or the application moves to a maintenance engagement with regular upgrades and patches. Several clients, including Healthicity and RaceHero, have stayed with us for many years.
Often paired with this.
Team Augmentation
Add experienced Ruby on Rails developers to your existing engineering team without spending months recruiting and onboarding. Our developers work within your tools and processes, collaborate directly with your team, and contribute to features, bug fixes, performance improvements, and the long-term maintainability of your application.
Ruby on Rails Maintenance
Running a Rails application requires continuous attention long after the initial launch. We provide ongoing maintenance covering bug fixes, security updates, dependency upgrades, performance improvements, monitoring, and production issues so your team can focus on building the business.
Ruby on Rails Code Audit
Get an experienced second set of eyes on your Ruby on Rails application. We review your architecture, code quality, security, database usage, performance, dependencies, and test coverage, then provide practical recommendations your engineering team can act on.