For twenty-two years, thoughtbot has helped companies and organizations of all sizes build maintainable, scalable, and useful software. While Ruby on Rails is often associated with startups and MVPs, it’s also been quietly powering major systems inside some of the world’s largest companies.
From financial institutions to global retailers and healthcare companies, Rails is still being chosen in 2025 for the same reasons it always has, speed, clarity, and scalability.
Here are 70 companies, many of these our clients, who you might not expect to be using Rails and why it was the right choice for them.
Healthcare & Life Sciences
Rails is ideal for HIPAA-compliant systems, health dashboards, and clinical research tools that need to evolve quickly while remaining secure. It’s often used in secure, compliant health platforms and internal dashboards.
- Spring Health: a mental health platform that provides personalized, clinically validated care through employers to support employee well-being.
- Omada Health: a digital care provider that delivers personalized programs to help people manage chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and obesity through behavior change and remote coaching.
- Talkspace: an online therapy platform that connects users with licensed therapists and psychiatrists for mental health support via text, audio, and video messaging.
- Cerebral: a telehealth platform that offers online therapy, counseling, and medication management for mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, and ADHD.
- Zocdoc: Zocdoc is a digital health marketplace that helps patients find and book in-person or virtual appointments with doctors and healthcare providers across specialties. Rails enables fast iteration on appointment scheduling and health data platforms.
- One Medical: Rails helps healthcare product teams iterate securely with a high-quality developer experience.
- Maven Clinic: Rails is ideal for B2B2C digital health platforms.
- Oscar Health: Rails helps insurers ship modern consumer experiences.
- Modern Fertility: Rails offers fast iteration for health startups with complex data models.
- Hinge Health: Rails supports fast-moving healthtech teams building proprietary platforms.
Financial Services
Ruby on Rails is a strong fit for fintech companies that need to move fast while maintaining security, reliability, and data integrity. Its mature ecosystem, strong conventions, and rapid development speed make it ideal for building secure APIs, internal tools, and customer-facing dashboards under regulatory constraints.
- Robinhood: Rails powers large parts of the internal admin system and dashboarding.
- Betterment: Rails enables secure financial automation at scale.
- Affirm: Rails powers infrastructure for payment and credit offerings.
- Brex: Rails helps fintech teams move quickly while maintaining regulatory control.
- Ramp: Rails is often used for transaction logic and internal tools in card platforms.
- Chime: Rails supports rapid iteration in banking products.
- Pipe: Rails is used to connect complex financial data streams and user workflows.
- Plaid: Rails powers internal products and partner portals.
- Tally: Rails supports personal finance experiences with strong user flows.
- Mercury: Rails offers simplicity and safety when handling banking APIs.
Retail & Consumer Brands
Ruby on Rails is well-suited for retail and e-commerce companies that need to launch quickly, scale efficiently, and adapt to changing customer demands. It powers platforms like Shopify—one of the world’s largest e-commerce providers—thanks to its rich ecosystem, API support, and ease of building tools for managing products, inventory, and orders.
- Glossier: Rails helps e-commerce brands ship fast and stay lean.
- Warby Parker: Rails powers inventory systems and customer interactions.
- Allbirds: Rails is used to launch marketing campaigns and customer dashboards.
- Away: Rails helps consumer brands manage e-commerce flows and customer service tools.
- Peloton: Rails supports rapid iteration in connected fitness platforms.
- Casper: Rails powers shopping experiences and operational dashboards.
- Outdoor Voices: Rails supports agile campaigns and seasonal product updates.
- Bonobos: Rails makes managing SKUs and launch schedules easier.
- Figs: Rails supports supply chain and DTC workflows.
- Rothy’s: Rails helps eco-friendly fashion brands move quickly with small teams.
Software & SaaS
Rails is still the go-to framework for SaaS apps, powering everything from developer tools to HR platforms.
- GitHub: The world’s largest code host still runs on Rails.
- Basecamp: Built Rails, and still uses it with Hotwire to power its latest products.
- Hey: Rails + Hotwire in action. No SPA, just productivity.
- Intercom: Rails powers their messaging platform behind the scenes.
- Kit: Rails supports creators at scale with reliable workflows.
- Figma: a collaborative design platform built using Rails.
- Loom: Rails is often used for internal admin tooling and user onboarding.
- Linear: Rails helps fast-moving product teams ship fast.
- Heroku: A Rails-friendly PaaS built on Rails.
- Retool: Rails used for internal data logic and dev experience.
Industrial & Manufacturing
For legacy systems modernization and plant ops platforms, Rails is a pragmatic choice.
- GE: Rails powers internal ops tooling in industrial divisions.
- Caterpillar: Rails supports logistics and dealer systems.
- Honeywell: Rails helps unify data from diverse industrial systems.
- Emerson: Rails is used for configuration tools and plant monitoring.
- Schneider Electric: Rails supports automation and internal dev teams.
- Bosch: Rails is used in innovation groups for dashboard and analytics tools.
- 3M: Rails helps streamline R&D tooling.
- Johnson Controls: Rails supports facility and building automation tools.
- Rockwell Automation: Rails powers data aggregation and management tools.
- ABB: Rails fits complex industrial software use cases.
Media & Entertainment
Ruby on Rails is ideal for media and entertainment companies that need to build custom editorial tools, manage content workflows, and iterate quickly. Its strong defaults, flexible integrations, and support for background jobs make it perfect for high-volume publishing, media processing, and internal dashboards.
- Netflix: Rails powers internal dashboards and tooling.
- Spotify: Rails is used for internal workflows and operational interfaces.
- The New York Times: Rails supports internal publishing tools.
- Bloomberg: Rails helps manage editorial and financial data pipelines.
- HBO: Rails powers team-facing dashboards and CMS platforms.
- Disney Streaming: Rails is used for internal tooling across their digital team.
- Vox Media: Rails supports publishing and editorial platforms.
- BuzzFeed: Rails runs content production pipelines and team tools.
- NPR: Rails powers media libraries and scheduling platforms.
- ViacomCBS: Rails enables cross-channel coordination tools.
Education
Ruby on Rails is a great fit for edtech platforms that need to support dynamic course content, user management, and rapid feature development. Companies like Duolingo and Teachable use Rails to build scalable learning tools, interactive dashboards, and secure access systems with a focus on long-term maintainability.
- Duolingo: a language-learning platform that uses Ruby on Rails for backend services and internal tools to support its scalable, user-driven content system.
- Coursera: an online learning platform that uses Ruby on Rails to power its partner dashboards and backend systems for managing courses and enrollments.
- Khan Academy: a nonprofit educational platform that uses Ruby on Rails to manage learning workflows, quizzes, and student progress tracking.
- Outschool: an online learning marketplace that uses Ruby on Rails to support fast iteration on classes, scheduling, and user management features.
- BloomTech: uses Ruby on Rails to build dynamic course scheduling, student onboarding, and access control systems.
- Teachable: a course creation platform that runs on Ruby on Rails to manage the full lifecycle of online course building, sales, and student engagement.
- Skillshare: a learning platform for creatives that uses Ruby on Rails to power its content management system and subscriber workflows.
- Podia: is an all-in-one platform for creators that uses Ruby on Rails to deliver digital products, online courses, and memberships.
- NoRedInk: is an edtech platform for writing and grammar that uses Ruby on Rails to handle user-generated content, curriculum logic, and classroom management.
- GoRails: an educational site that teaches Ruby on Rails itself, and is built entirely with Rails to deliver screencasts, memberships, and community tools.
Want to Build Software and Teams Like These Companies?
From early-stage prototypes to billion-dollar platforms, Rails continues to deliver in 2025. At thoughtbot, we’ve been helping organizations, many listed above, build, scale, and modernize with Rails for over 22 years. Whether you’re a startup building a new product or an enterprise modernizing a legacy system, thoughtbot can help. Let’s talk.