Rails Tutorials, Examples, and Starter Applications

by Daniel Kehoe

Last updated 17 June 2014

A list of recommended Rails tutorials with example applications. Also starter applications that can be customized for your own project.

If You Are New to Rails

If you’re new to Rails, see What is Ruby on Rails?, the book Learn Ruby on Rails, and recommendations for a Rails tutorial.

What is the RailsApps Project?

This is an article from the RailsApps project. The RailsApps project provides example applications that developers use as starter apps. Hundreds of developers use the apps, report problems as they arise, and propose solutions. Rails changes frequently; each application is known to work and serves as your personal “reference implementation.” Each application is accompanied by a tutorial so there is no mystery code. Support for the project comes from subscribers. Please accept our invitation to join the RailsApps project.

Rails Composer Starter Applications

These example applications are created using the Rails Composer tool.

Example Applications for Rails 4.2	Tutorial	Comments
Learn Rails	Learn Ruby on Rails	introduction to Rails for beginners
Rails and Bootstrap	Rails Bootstrap Tutorial	starter app for Rails and Bootstrap
Rails and Foundation	Rails Foundation Tutorial	starter app for Rails and Zurb Foundation
Mailing List with Active Job	Mailing List with Active Job Tutorial	background processing
OmniAuth and Rails	OmniAuth Tutorial	OmniAuth for authentication
Devise and Rails	Devise Tutorial	Devise for authentication
Role-Based Authorization	Role-Based Authorization Tutorial	Simple authorization
Pundit and Rails	Rails Pundit Tutorial	Pundit for authorization
Sign Up and Download	Sign Up and Download Tutorial	Devise with authorization to download a PDF file
Stripe Checkout	Stripe Checkout Tutorial	selling a product with Stripe Checkout

Other Starter Apps

These are notable; there are many more! Clone these repositories and edit the files to create your own starter app.

Author	Project	Comments
Joe Johnston	rails4-starterkit	Rails 4.1, Bootstrap or Foundation, Devise, RailsAdmin, RSpec, etc.
Joshua Muheim	base	Rails 4, Slim, RSpec, Devise, Cancancan, Bootstrap, etc.
diowa	ruby2-rails4-bootstrap-heroku	Rails 4, Haml, RSpec, PostgreSQL, Bootstrap, etc.
Nilesh Trivedi	rails-starter-app	Rails 4, OmniAuth, RSpec, PostgreSQL, Twitter Bootstrap., etc.
Andi Altendorfer	Community Base Application	Devise, OmniAuth, Mongoid, CanCan, Paperclip, etc.
W.R. de Vos	rails_template	Devise, Oauth with Facebook and Google login, Mongoid, Cancan, Carrierwave, Rspec, Cucumber
Rendered Text	BaseApp	PostgreSQL, jQuery, RSpec, Cucumber, Devise, FB login, admin system
Stefan Wienert	Rails-3.1-BaseApp
Ryan Weald	Base-Rails-3.1-App
Kamil Wdowicz	Template3.1
Hugo Dias	RailStrap	Twitter Bootstrap, HTML5 Boilerplate
Brian Dear	Brian’s Basic Rails Starter Template	Haml, PostgreSQL
Adam Loving	Rails Bootstrap	Slim, Compass, Devise, Twitter Bootstrap, Omniauth

Application Templates for Starter Apps

There are many Rails application templates that generate starter apps. Application templates are Ruby scripts used with the "rails new myapp -m" command to generate a Rails app. See a list of notable Rails Application Templates.