Rails promises a small team can stay productive across the whole stack. But what if you want to build your UI in React (or Vue, or Svelte)? Reach for it the usual way and Rails loses some of its magic. It becomes a JSON API behind a separate React app, and your small application grows into two codebases you sync by hand. The Rails ecosystem has a way out. Inertia Rails turns React into a view layer: your controllers still render the pages, with no API and no tangled client-state in between. Let’s see how React learns to play by the rules of the One-Person Framework!
Senior Backend Engineer at Evil Martians, dedicated to bridging Rails and the JavaScript ecosystem. A core maintainer of Inertia Rails, and the creator of Typelizer (automatic TypeScript types from Ruby) and TurboMount (component-based widgets for Hotwire). Writes about Rails and frontend on the Evil Martians blog.