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Planet Argon is a software consultancy known for inheriting and revitalizing existing Ruby on Rails applications, helping organizations turn legacy systems into long-term assets rather than liabilities. Founded in 2002, they’ve been working with Rails since the beginning, long enough that their name is hardcoded into the Rails source code.
They’ve worked on hundreds of Rails applications across industries, from Nike, Sequoia Capital, Disney, and Oregon State University. Their clients often maintain essential Rails applications that don’t require a full-time engineering team but still demand consistent support and expertise.
Planet Argon helps organizations stabilize and modernize their Rails applications, improving performance, reducing risk, and extending the value of their existing investments. Whether serving as a long-term technical partner or providing flexible augmentation alongside internal developers, they help teams avoid the risks of relying on limited in-house capacity and keep applications running smoothly.
Planet Argon supports teams already committed to Rails, whether helping them finally gain traction on upgrading that old Rails 2.3 app, introducing Hotwire, or integrating with common JavaScript frameworks depending on project needs. After working on hundreds of Rails apps, they’ve seen nearly every generation of tooling come and go.
Their engineers focus on making applications more sustainable, understandable, and resilient to future change, improving deployment workflows, stabilizing test suites, and guiding teams through architectural transitions.
In 2023, Company became a contributing member of the Rails Foundation.
Ruby on Rails has long been regarded as an excellent tool for startups and makers. Our delightful clients benefit from the contributions of the Ruby on Rails community, which enables small teams to achieve big goals.
Robby Russell Founder & CEO
After learning about the Rails Foundation’s goals and upcoming plans, we asked how we could join the mission. This investment is less an attempt to plant new seeds but rather to help improve the maintainability of an already flourishing garden.
We believe in a blossoming future for Ruby on Rails. All Aboard!
Planet Argon contributes back to the Rails ecosystem through mentorship, open source, and developer education. Robby Russell, Planet Argon’s founder, hosts the On Rails podcast, the official podcast of the Rails Foundation, featuring conversations with developers, maintainers, and teams building with Rails.
They also lead the Rails Community Survey, a biennial research project tracking tooling trends, team practices, and developer sentiment throughout the Rails ecosystem. Robby also hosts the Maintainable Software Podcast, which has featured over 200 interviews on the challenges of maintaining and improving software systems.
For developers looking to improve their own Rails apps, Planet Argon created Maintainable Rails, a free email course offering small, actionable ways to build healthier, more maintainable applications.
Planet Argon is also where Oh My Zsh was created, a widely adopted terminal customization tool now used by millions of developers worldwide.
Robby speaks regularly at Ruby conferences on topics such as technical debt, legacy code, and strategies for sustainable software development. If you see him at an event, you might also walk away with a Planet Argon sticker.
They also support events like Rails Girls, RubyConf Africa, Tropical.rb, and SF Ruby, and run a paid internship program that has helped launch the careers of many developers.