2026 Ruby on Rails Community Survey Results

The Results Are In!Nearly 1,800 developers from the Ruby on Rails community across 80 countries shared their thoughts on the tools, frameworks, and workflows that shape their daily development lives.This year, we also asked about something that's on everyone's mind: AI. How teams are using it, how they feel about it, and whether it's actually changing the way they work.This is the ninth edition of our survey since 2009. For nearly two decades, it has been one of the key ways our team at Planet Argon keeps a pulse on how this community has evolved.Some of these questions date back to our very first survey, allowing us to track trends over time. Others are new additions, designed to reflect what's changed in our ecosystem since we last asked.Now it’s time to dig in. We hope you find something useful, surprising, or at least validating here.How to read the charts: Responses were collected from April to early July 2026. Percentages are based on the people who answered each question. Many questions let people pick more than one answer, so those totals add up to more than 100%. Write-in answers were grouped by hand.DemographicsWho took the 2026 survey.Which one of the following applies to you?Percent of respondents.How did you learn to code?Percent of respondents by survey year.In 2026:CS degree44%Self-taught41%Bootcamp8%On the job7%How many years of experience do you have developing with Ruby on Rails?Percent of respondents.Teams & ResponsibilitiesHow Rails development teams are shaped and how they collaborate.How big is the software development team for your primary Rails app(s)?Percent of respondents.Has your development team grown or shrunk in the last two years?Percent of respondents by survey year.In 2026:About the same size51%Grown30%Shrunk19%Who uses your application/s?Percent of respondents by survey year.In 2026:Mostly consumer-only (public)47%A balanced mix of consumers and internal users42%Mostly internal users only11%How do you give your developers access to realistic data for local development and bug reproduction?Select all that apply. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.When new developers join your project, where do they tend to struggle most?Respondents could pick up to three. Percent of respondents; totals add up to more than 100%.Other responsesAuthentication and authorization setupRuby & Rails Version UpdatesWhat versions the community is running and what holds upgrades back.What versions of Ruby are you using in your …