Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

RubyGems VS Webpacker

Compare RubyGems VS Webpacker and see what are their differences

RubyGems logo RubyGems

RubyGems. org is the Ruby community's gem hosting service. Instantly publish your gems and then install them. Use the API find out more about available gems. Become a contributor and improve the site yourself.

Webpacker logo Webpacker

Use Webpack to manage app-like JavaScript modules in Rails - rails/webpacker
  • RubyGems Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-03
  • Webpacker Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27

RubyGems features and specs

  • Comprehensive Library
    RubyGems hosts a vast collection of libraries and gems, making it simple to find reusable code for a wide range of tasks.
  • Dependency Management
    RubyGems manages dependencies between various gems efficiently, ensuring that the right versions of gems are used together.
  • Ease of Use
    The command-line interface provided by RubyGems is very user-friendly, making it easy for developers to install, update, and remove gems.
  • Community Support
    A large and active community contributes to RubyGems, offering extensive support, documentation, and regular updates.
  • Version Control
    RubyGems allows users to specify particular gem versions, which helps maintain code stability and compatibility.

Possible disadvantages of RubyGems

  • Security Concerns
    As with any open-source repository, there is a risk of malicious gems being uploaded, which could compromise the security of projects.
  • Dependency Hell
    Sometimes, resolving complex dependencies can become difficult, leading to conflicts and potential 'dependency hell' situations.
  • Performance Issues
    Certain gems may have performance inefficiencies, which can affect the overall performance of the application using them.
  • Quality Variability
    The quality of gems can vary widely, as they are maintained by different individuals with varying levels of expertise.
  • Learning Curve
    New developers may face a learning curve in understanding how to effectively use RubyGems and manage dependencies within their projects.

Webpacker features and specs

  • Modern JavaScript Features
    Webpacker allows Rails applications to utilize modern JavaScript features and tools, such as ES6 syntax, JSX, and TypeScript, thereby enhancing the developer experience and code quality.
  • Asset Bundling
    It efficiently bundles multiple JavaScript files into a single package, reducing load times and improving performance by minimizing the number of HTTP requests.
  • Integration with Rails
    As an official Rails library, Webpacker integrates seamlessly with the Rails framework, ensuring that front-end builds are consistent and easier to manage alongside Ruby on Rails projects.
  • Configurable
    Provides a highly configurable environment, allowing developers to customize their JavaScript and asset builds extensively to meet specific project needs.
  • Community Support
    Being part of the Rails ecosystem, Webpacker benefits from an extensive community support, with a wealth of third-party resources, documentation, and plugins available.

Possible disadvantages of Webpacker

  • Complexity
    Webpacker can introduce additional complexity, especially for developers not familiar with JavaScript tooling or the webpack configuration, which can lead to a steeper learning curve.
  • Performance Overhead
    The abstraction and tooling required by Webpacker can add performance overhead during development with slower compilation and building times compared to simpler asset management solutions.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies can become burdensome as Webpacker requires handling both the Ruby Gems and the JavaScript packages through yarn or npm, increasing maintenance efforts.
  • Migration Path
    As newer tools and techniques emerge, moving away from Webpacker could require significant refactoring efforts, especially for applications with extensive custom configurations.
  • Deprecated Status
    Webpacker is no longer the recommended default for new Rails applications starting from Rails 7, which now prefers using esbuild or importmaps, potentially affecting its long-term viability.

Analysis of RubyGems

Overall verdict

  • RubyGems is well-regarded within the Ruby community for its ease of use, comprehensive library of gems, and robust dependency management features. It is considered an essential tool for Ruby developers.

Why this product is good

  • RubyGems is the default package manager for Ruby, which allows developers to easily distribute, share, and manage Ruby libraries or 'gems'. It simplifies the installation of libraries and dependency management, streamlining the development process for Ruby applications.

Recommended for

    Ruby developers of all levels, especially those who wish to efficiently manage and incorporate external libraries into their projects. It is also beneficial for teams working collaboratively on Ruby projects, as it helps maintain consistency across development environments.

RubyGems videos

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Webpacker videos

RailsConf 2020 CE - Webpacker, It-Just-Works, But How? by Justin Gordon

More videos:

  • Review - Should you use React with Webpacker in your Rails project? Rails MVC vs Single Page App (SPA)!

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to RubyGems and Webpacker)
Front End Package Manager
Web Application Bundler
0 0%
100% 100
Software Development
79 79%
21% 21
JS Build Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, RubyGems should be more popular than Webpacker. It has been mentiond 102 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

RubyGems mentions (102)

  • Developing Modules for Puppet and the Forge in 2025
    Puppet Facter (available from rubygems.org). - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Joy of Test Driven Development(TDD) using Rspec in Ruby
    Create Gemfile file inside the directory and add only one line: https://rubygems.org. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Go Tool: tudo o que ninguem pediu
    # copied from https://github.com/sidekiq/sidekiq/blob/main/Gemfile Source "https://rubygems.org" Gemspec Gem "rake" RAILS_VERSION = "~> 8.0" Gem "actionmailer", RAILS_VERSION Gem "actionpack", RAILS_VERSION Gem "activejob", RAILS_VERSION Gem "activerecord", RAILS_VERSION Gem "railties", RAILS_VERSION Gem "redis-client" # gem "bumbler" # gem "debug" Gem "sqlite3", "~> 2.2", platforms: :ruby Gem... - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Some tips for making a ruby gem
    All the things we've done for a gem are to release it on https://rubygems.org/. To release the gem, you need an account on https://rubygems.org/ first. So, sign up for one if you haven't done that yet. Then execute rake build to build a gem file under pkg, it should look like pkg/your_gem-0.0.1.gem. The version number 0.0.1 is defined in the lib/your_gem/version.rb. Finally, we call. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • New Release: turkish_id v1.7.0
    To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
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Webpacker mentions (17)

  • React + Ruby on Rails without any gems
    We will use Webpacker or JavaScript compiler and assets management. By following the webpacker installation guide, letโ€™s add Webpacker and React to our application. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Collecting JavaScript code coverage with Capybara in Ruby on Rails application
    For example, there is a Ruby on Rails application that uses Webpacker and has JavaScript files that are covered by the system tests. Capybara is used as the system testing tool. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Asset Pipeline JS Migration
    Using Webpacker in Rails provides several advantages over the traditional asset pipeline. First, Webpacker uses JavaScript modules, which allows for better code organization and improved code reusability. Second, it offers modern frontend build tools, such as Babel and PostCSS, for transforming and compiling assets. Third, it provides faster build times and faster runtime performance through code splitting and... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Thank you Webpacker, Goodbye Webpacker
    This article is replace Webpacker with Simpacker and webpack. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • How to setup ruby on rails + Angular
    In ruby โ€‹โ€‹on rails 7 what is the best way to properly install Angular because I can't find any documentation about it. The only tutorial that exists uses webpacker (https://github.com/rails/webpacker) but unfortunately it is no longer supported and no longer up to date in terms of security. Source: about 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing RubyGems and Webpacker, you can also consider the following products

GitHub - Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.

Webpack - Webpack is a module bundler. Its main purpose is to bundle JavaScript files for usage in a browser, yet it is also capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset.

npm - npm is a package manager for Node.

Turbolinks - Turbolinks makes navigating your web application faster

Bower - Bower is a package manager for the web.

Yarn - Yarn is a package manager for your code.