The Rails vs PHP debate has been on for ages with the standard answer being “You can’t compare Rails to PHP – Rails is a framework and PHP is a language. Compare it to CakePHP… or CodeIgniter… or Prado… or Symphony… or…”.
There are now so many PHP frameworks available it’s becoming increasingly difficult choosing one and sticking to it.
Rails has been the preferred Ruby framework for a while now and just until recently the other available frameworks were not mainstream. Moving from another language to Ruby invariably meant moving to Rails. Apparently, all that is changing.
Doing a search for Ruby frameworks brings up the following:
Obviously Ruby’s fast catching up with PHP.
The positive side is the debates will now become “Ruby vs PHP” like they should have been in the first place.
No related posts.
You will find more extensive list of frameworks on the Ramaze website, we’re not afraid of competition.
And just for the record, Nitro is as old (and arguably as good) as Rails, just not as widely known.
There has been quite some groundwork, nowadays with Rack and things like Tenjin (http://www.kuwata-lab.com/tenjin/) you can create the framework of your dreams almost over night.
Whatever floats your boat.
Rails isn’t the grand daddy. Not by a long shot.
As Jonathan states, Nitro is comensurate with Rails in age, and there are a couple that have been around much longer.
These include Cerise: http://cerise.rubyforge.org/
And IOWA: http://iowa.swiftcore.org/presentations/intro.pdf
IOWA was in constant production use for a long time before Rails was even a twinkle in DHH’s eye.
It’s interesting to see there are even more ruby frameworks than I thought.
@Jonathan:
Thanks for the comprehensive list on your site. I went through the first three Ramaze screencasts and I must admit I do like it. The flexibility is akin to that of CodeIgniter in PHP (doesn’t force you to do anything a certain way but it would be nice if you did).
@Kirk:
My usage of ‘grand-daddy’ was not strictly in reference to the age of the framework. Rails is responsible for most of the current interest in ruby and for a lot of people I’ve spoken to, ruby is synonymous with rails. Obviously in a popularity contest, it would win hands-down.
@ekerete, sure. I was just commenting on your choice of phrasing and presentation. The current proliferation of people trying their hand at web development frameworks has been fueled by Rails. I don’t contest that assertion at all.
@Kirk, wrong, Ramaze was fueled by Nitro not by Rails.
Or rather, fueled by curiosity. 
@jonathan, but….Rails is what originally drew manveru to Ruby, IIRC.
That is true of a great, great many of the current users, and innovaters, of Ruby.
@ekete, sorry for misusing your blog as a chat! ;D
@kirk, yes it was Rails (or rather the nice screencasts with TextMate), but he dropped almost immediately to Nitro (due to Rails’ constraints). And for me it was ‘rice’(http://arika.org/ruby/rice.en) and not Rails. But then again I’m not one of the great innovators.
Hi there,
We are trying to gather the best tutorials and other useful web resources (hosting, showcase, discussion groups, community site,…) about the most populars Ruby web frameworks (Ruby on Rails, Merb,…) in our web framework directory.
Please don’t hesitate to have a look on our Ruby pages :
“All about Merb” page http://www.therightsoft.com/products/merb/
“All about Ruby on Rails” page http://www.therightsoft.com/products/rubyonrails
and send us some pointers to valuable web resources about Rails, Merb (and others) that we may have missed to : webmaster@therightsoft.com
Thanks in advance