Ruby on Rails is a framework for building websites that runs on a server. It was made with the programming language Ruby. MVC is used for the central database, online services, and web pages. So, the best time to make decisions affecting how well the application works is when the product is being made.
How well a project works depends greatly on how fast and well the applications work. Our primary goal is to satisfy the hopes of the app’s users by making the app load as quickly as possible.
You can employ Ruby-on-Rails developers to make your apps easier to use and run better. Using the tips and tricks in this blog, you can boost the effectiveness of Ruby on Rails applications. But first, let’s look at how websites can be tracked in terms of their performance.
Performance Metrics for Keeping an Eye on a Website
Most people who use the Internet expect an application screen to load in less than three seconds. As time goes on, better Internet connections have made it faster for pages to load. Users today expect an app to load quickly. It could be best if you came prepared. Here are some ideas for tools you can use to keep an eye on how your website is doing.
PageSpeed Insights
A Speed Score set of performance may also be employed. This Google tool is used by the PageSpeed Insights tool. This solution gives you information about how well your website and desktop work.
This lets you see how the program will work in different situations. Google must take the results of the PageSpeed performance test into account when deciding how to rank a web page. If your web app works better, it will appear higher in search results.
WebPage Test
WebPage Test gives much information about how well an app works based on many metrics. The results of the performance measurement session are clear, accurate, and available. It’s easy to use the tool.
New Relic APM
New Relic APM will meet all of your needs. It works excellent for Ruby apps, as well as Node.js, Java, Python, and a lot of other programs. It is a cloud-based scheme with a simple, easy-to-use interface that tells you everything you need to know about an application’s environment.
Vital metrics are one way to check how well your app is doing. You could also use New Relic APM to solve other issues. The real-time analysis finds problems and suggests ways to fix them.
Just do the necessary optimization.
When improving the performance of the ROR app, only the parts that need to be optimized should be changed. Figure out what requirements to be fixed and spend more time evaluating those areas. The application doesn’t need to be rewritten entirely or started from scratch to be optimized.
Valuable gems and plugins from third parties
The code needs to be cleaned up and refactored for Ruby performance optimization, a time-consuming manual process. You can do this everyday task quickly, though, with the help of several third-party apps. Also, specialized Ruby gems and plugins make code optimization much easier:
- Bullet Gem: Because of Bullet Gem, the N+1 problem can be solved more quickly. This gem is handy and well-liked in the Ruby community.
- Yslow gem leverages Yahoo! Rules to assess performance and aid in problem-solving.
Tips and tricks to improve Ruby on Rails performance
So, what can be done to improve the Ruby on Rails application? Some of the ideas and methods listed below can help you figure out how fast your application is and whether or not you need to do Rails performance tweaking.
Calculate the level of application performance
How can you tell if an application needs to be faster if you don’t know how fast it is right now? Any work to improve Rails’ performance might be completely pointless. On the other hand, it’s easy to figure out how much commission is due for web apps used for gaming.
The standard is 60 frames per second, so you’re off to a good start if the frame rate doesn’t drop below 30 fps, even in the most complicated sequences. The results of functional software can be very different. How would you rate how they did? In this case, you can use the New Relic tool for measuring software performance.
Increase RAM size
If the number of app users goes up and you notice a small or significant drop in performance, the first thing to do is look at your server’s capabilities. To get your software back to its fastest speed, you must add more RAM. Choose a CPU stronger than your current one is another similar piece of advice. You can also replace your HDD with an SSD to make an application run faster.
Use a load-balancing strategy.
Modern applications that get a lot of traffic handle thousands of requests every second. And the more requests are taken care of, the harder it is to respond immediately. Load balancing makes sure that reasonable requests get sent to the server. As a result, you could be able to reach the maximum speed, which can significantly improve app performance.
Clear up your code
This is a rule that every software engineer should always follow. To achieve clean code techniques, you should follow these rules: Develop the app’s logic ahead of time, keep code structures clearly defined, add comments to explain your actions, shorten functions, and use standard naming. To make the app quick and easy to use, take some time to learn about clean coding concepts and use them.
Images and tables should be made smaller.
The easiest thing to do in your online application is to format images and tables. Think about a webpage where photos can be resized without quality loss or meaning. Many times, you might be able to escape with these lower resolutions. You can also try to make JavaScript modules and billowing style sheets as small as possible with the “minify()” function.
Database requests are used as little as possible.
The connection to the database should not be used too much. Check if a user used your app to do something specific, for instance. Instead of downloading all the news from the database and looking for the ones left by a particular user, you can run a single query with the term SELECT COUNT, which will tell you if the server is still being used.
Ruby’s GC Tuning
To optimize a Ruby on Rails app, you also need to know what garbage collection, or GC, is. This is a way to control the memory of an app. Changes to your Ruby GC settings can speed up unit tests and the whole program. Its algorithms are interesting, but to get the most out of garbage collectors, you can hire developers who specialize in them and have a lot of experience and skills.
Caching, caching, and more caching!
Depending on your requirements, you can select cache actions, pages, assets, SQL queries, and more. When your app has data that doesn’t change over time, Rail’s performance will be better. But, take these precautions slowly. It should be clear that this is the last option and that keeping the valuable cache over time is time-consuming and difficult.
ActiveRecord caching lets you store user requests in memory, so you don’t have to connect to the DBMS every time one is made. The Rails cache can help the performance of a web application if user actions require a lot of calls to the database.
Use AJAX
The AJAX technique was introduced and could be used in many different fields. It was also affected by the most popular programming language. It is a set of all the methods you need to make asynchronous solutions.
It makes the website’s content change on the fly. But the process is done automatically, so you don’t have to refresh a page whenever you want to see the change. Also, the performance is better because AJAX cuts down on the number of queries.
Conclusion
These are some of the ways that ROR performance was made better. This is, of a path, the tip of the iceberg. There are many different ways to help improve performance.
As Ruby on Rails becomes more popular, keeping the ROR application running well becomes more important. If you want to improve your app, start small and keep an eye on it as you go. Your database questions should be cleaned up, as many AJAX requests as possible, and as many views as possible should be cached.
