Groovy/Grails :: Ruby/Rails :: 2011 State of the framework

Rails and Grails are both excellent frameworks with their current releases. You really can't go wrong with either. Here are some things I find interesting about them though:

Rails

• Rails (Ruby) does not scale as well as Grails (Groovy). You will need more horsepower to run your application. This isn't a big deal at all with PaaS options like EngineYard (and hopefully a AWS BeanStalk Rails option in the future), but it might just cost a little more to run a Rails app vs a Grails app (obviously JRuby is also an option to though).
• Rails is slightly better with NoSQL alternatives currently, but Grails is catching up quickly
• Rails has many more plugins, but this can lead to trouble if you use some that aren't maintained (a lot of them don't currently work with Rails 3 yet either).
• Rails is more mature and has more features at this point in time because it's been around longer
• Rails REST support is amazing
• There are many more "big" Rails websites than Grails
• Ruby is much more popular than Groovy - TIOBE
• No dependence on Oracle, ha! (Grails obviously needs the JVM)

Grails

• Grails integrates with the JVM better than JRuby
• Grails GORM is better than ActiveRecord (IMHO), although Rails 3 opened the door a little bit for other persistence options, but all the books, tutorials, etc all use ActiveRecord
• Grails View taglibs are better than <=%...%> in view
• Grails plugins are well documented and clearly state whether they are supported by SpringSource or not
• SpringSource is investing heavily in Grails
• There will be many more corporate jobs for Grails than Rails in the future, but more startups use Rails (where do you want to work?)

My perspective

• I used Rails a couple years ago, I'm working on a Grails project now
• I like them both better than Django (Python) or Zend Framework (PHP)
• I plan to learn Lift (Scala) next

My Recommendation

• If you have never done Java development and are working on a side project for a small to medium website, go with Rails
• If you are working at a big company that uses Java, try pitching Grails to your management as the "next Java framework" they should invest in
• If you are working on "the next twitter or foursquare," well then you are smart enough to answer this question yourself! :)

First time I begun a project with Rails I was really surprised:

• How can I separate "repository" from "Service"? Oh my God: I have to put business logic on controllers... I can't imagine a real big project with Ruby on Rails: Is there Someone on 37signals remembering the basics of separating Business and Domain/Repository. The Rails folders/classes structure doesn't take care about this.

• Second sock: "Active Record". Try to design a real complex Object Oriented Business layer and map it using the Rails Models (Active Record)... really: don't.

• 6 months later, with our project running: R&R is consuming 80% CPU (and memory...) using apache + passanger on a quad core server... and the Postgresql Database is in holidays (3-4% of CPU)... Oh my god (newly)

  My old ASP/VB6 applications where capable of serve pages to 300 concurrent users in a real backoffice context with real complex databases and complex business installed on a standalone machine (a year 2001 1 CPU core server).

Of course, conventions and Ruby syntax are lovely... and no one needs a compiler (well... unit tests are used for this porpouses 90% of the time... just for solving the dissapeared typing each time I change some code... "Please, programming god, take care about my fingers mistakes" )

First impession with Grails:

• A "Cool" stack inspired on Rails with professional power based on Spring framework (IoC, Hibernate, ...)

And YES!!!

• There is a clean Domain/Service separation. NICE!!!
• You can, eventually, forget Java.

Rails is fairly mature, has a HUGE ecosystem to go with it. I'm not familiar with Grails or it's support online, but the red flag I see in your post is that you've admitted Grails is playing catch up to Rails.

Ruby is an absolute joy to work with (and this coming from an old C++ hack... why, back in the day I used to program with just a hex keypad, young whippersnapper... now GET OFF MY LAWN!).

There are things about ruby that make it hard to follow at times (method_missing I'm looking at YOU) but I'm sure that can be said about any language.

Me? I'd go with ruby and rails.