New Rails reference app library published

Today we’re adding a new page to the Ruby on Rails website: Reference Apps. This is a small, hand-picked library of real, open-source Rails applications worth studying.

Documentation can only show you so much. Sometimes it’s better to just crack open the lid and go straight to the source to see how a real, production-quality Rails application is built. That’s harder to do well when there’s no curated starting point, so that’s what this library is meant to be.

Each entry links out to the full source so you can read the real thing: how the models are shaped, how a controller stays thin, how Turbo Streams actually get wired up, the full commit history, and all the small decisions made along the way.

This matters now, too, for a second audience: increasingly, people are looking for good examples to point their LLMs towards, so the code they produce is best set up for success. A small set of clean, current, production-quality examples gives both humans and models something solid to learn from.

So what’s in the library

We’re launching with three open source apps:

• Campfire - a complete, real-time group chat app.
• Writebook - a self-hosted platform for publishing books on the web.
• Fizzy - a Kanban board reimagined.

Wait, they’re all from…

Yes, so far they’re all apps built by 37signals. (That even caught DHH by surprise.)

These apps have often been pointed to as great examples to follow, and there’s no question that they follow Rails conventions to a T. Furthermore, seeing as we know they’re tried and tested, they were a great starting point for the library.

They’re now easier for you (and LLMs and anyone vibe-coding their way into the community for the first time) to find.

Big thank you to Rob Zolkos for designing and shipping this page for the Rails Foundation.

What’s next

This is a deliberately small library, and is not meant to be an exhaustive directory of open source Rails apps. We do plan to grow this library over time, but this will happen slowly and organically. We’ll announce when new applications are added.

You can find the library now on the Docs page, or go straight to /docs/reference-apps

Take a look and let us know what you think!

Send us your feedback at foundation@rubyonrails.org.