WordPress vs Ruby on Rails – One of the most unique comparisons you might have in your mind. But, there is nothing to worry about as we are here to answer all your question. In this guide, we are going to compare WordPress with Ruby on Rails from all aspects. The end goal is to see which of them is better and which one you should be using.
Are you excited? Let’s start with the overview.
What is Ruby on Rails?
Ruby on Rails is a framework written on Ruby language to create complex web apps. The core language here is Ruby. It has a model-view framework where you can create web services of your choice. You can also create web pages. You will need technical knowledge for this.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is an open-source framework where you can create websites. It works on PHP. You can create any website you want with the help of WordPress. It was initially started for creating blogs. However, you can now create almost any type of website with the help of this. It’s a CMS with which you can quickly create the websites you want.
Can you build a website combining both WordPress and Ruby on Rails?
If you are a non-technical person, you surely might have this question.
The short answer is NO. Both of these are different things where you can create web apps and websites. Even the languages are different. Therefore, it is not possible to use both of them together.
However, you can surely use it in special cases. Here is an example that you need to understand.
You can create web apps using Ruby on Rails. Now, if you want to create a web app using Ruby, you can do it. Further, if you want to have the user registration using WordPress, you can do that. In the same way, you can have the web’s front end using WordPress.
This will be very hard to implement and you might surely mess up the entire coding and functionality if you don’t do it correctly. Therefore, we suggest you not use both of them together,
What if you want to migrate completely from one platform to another? Well, you can surely do that. You can certainly migrate from one platform to another.
Price Comparison: WordPress Vs Ruby on rails
The next is price comparison. It’s important to keep track of the pricing of these platforms as well.
WordPress is free to use. All you need is a hosting provider that supports WordPress. You can install it with one click. Anyone can start using WordPress. If you want to add more functionality, you can quickly add any plugin you want. There are a lot of free and paid plugins available for you to use. For the front end, you will get the themes. Just like plugins, there are a lot of free themes from which you can choose the best one. If you want extra features, premium themes are also available for you. You can get every developer in every range here. There are affordable developers as well as there are developers with a huge experience.
On the other hand, you will need some help from developers if you want to create any web app with Ruby on Rails. The charges will depend on the developers. Further, there is always the maintenance fee that you need to count. There are developer charges for every single thing. You will have to pay for the theme (front-end) and you will also have to pay for the functionalities. Developer charges are more for Ruby on Rails as compared to WordPress.
Along with this, you will also have to consider the hosting fees. You will have to pay the hosting price as well. We will surely talk more about hosting as we move further.
Which is easier to learn: WordPress or Ruby on Rails?
Many people don’t want to hire a company to do all the work. If you want to learn this yourself and see which one is easier to learn, this section is for you. Here, we will see which of these are easier to use.
WordPress is extremely easy to learn. If you spend some hours, you can easily learn WordPress. There are thousands of resources available from which you can learn. You don’t need to spend a penny learning WordPress. The free resources are enough valuable to learn the entire WordPress. You can even make small modifications to the code with the help of tutorials. There is no coding knowledge necessary to create websites in WordPress. You can create it directly with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. To add functionality, there are plugins to help you. Even WordPress development is quite easy to learn. You will need PHP for this which is also easy to learn.
Ruby on Rails is quite hard to learn as compared to WordPress. Here, the main language is Ruby and there are various instances where you will need coding knowledge. Learning Ruby is not a piece of cake. It requires the basic knowledge of programming and you will have to give it some time to learn. There aren’t as many resources as WordPress here. You can still find some of the best resources to learn Ruby. However, if you want to learn to complete Ruby on Rails for free, it will take some effort to find the best resource.
Ruby on rails vs WordPress: User Interface
The user interface is where we will focus on two things. We will see the UI for the admins as well as we will see the UI you will get for the users.
WordPress has a great user interface for admins. It’s easy to use but after using it for a while, it might get a little boring for some people. However, you can easily navigate it from one menu to other settings with ease. Setting themes, adding plugins, etc are too easy to do. It will consume your least time here. For users, you can set various themes. There are many free as well as paid themes available. Depending on your needs, you can select the best one. You will get plenty of options to choose from.
The user interface for Ruby on Rails can be quite easy to use. You will get the regular user interface which you might have seen at many other places. There are some of the templates available for admins. You can easily set the admin templates. For the user side, you will have to develop the front end. In the same way, if you want to add something unique, you will need the coding knowledge for this. You will also have to think of a design at first. The pricing will depend on the appearance and the developers you select.
Which hosting type should you use for both of these platforms?
Like we mentioned in the price comparison, there are always other costs that are involved when you are planning to create your website and run it. You will have to choose a good hosting provider.
WordPress is lightweight and will use very few resources. Here, you can host your website with ease on any shared hosting package. The shared hosting is quite fast and it will allow you to host any website at a very affordable price. Further, when you want to scale up your hosting, you can surely choose the VPS or you can go with the cloud hosting. There are managed WordPress hosting services where the technical side is managed by the hosting company. In simpler words, you can get the hosting services for WordPress at the cheapest price and you can also get premium hosting.
Ruby on Rails uses more resources. Therefore, there is almost no shared hosting where you can host Ruby on Rails. You will need a VPS for that. VPS is great and will ensure that your website loads in no time. However, the point is that you can’t start with a low price here. You will have to pay more here. Therefore, make sure that you have some budget if you are planning to go with Ruby on Rails. In some cases, you will also have to install Ruby on the server. It’s quite easy to do but you will have to do it manually.
ROR or WP for better SEO and Performance?
If you are planning to start blogging and you are looking for the best platform, you also need to see the SEO of the platform. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. If you have good SEO, you will rank better. Therefore, you can surely consider this.
WordPress has the basic SEO given directly. For better SEO optimization, there are many plugins available like Yoast SEO, Rank Math SEO, etc that you can use. These plugins will help you with SEO and ranking your blog on Google. They are extremely easy to configure and it will hardly take 10 minutes to configure them. This will give you some better chances of ranking on Google and all the other search engines. The performance will depend on various things here such as the theme you are using, plugins you are using, hosting provider, etc. These plugins have the majority of functionaries for free. If you want all the functionalities, you will have to pay a small fee for that.
ROR (Ruby on Rails) will give a great completion to WordPress when it comes to the performance of the websites. You will get great performance here as there are no extra features given in-built. Talking about SEO, you will surely get the basic SEO but you will have to put in some effort to do the rest of the things. There are no plugins here. Also, you will have to think about all the things by yourself and implement them. The developer will charge you for coding all the functionalities. It depends on the developers.
Conclusion: Which platform should I use to start blogging?
The next question to ask is which platform should I use to start blogging. Well, if you want to start blogging, you can easily start with any platform. The answer should be quite clear by now as you already know which is better. We saw some of the most common points of comparison to get the answer.
The best preferable platform here will be WordPress. You can easily start blogging with WordPress. You can install it with one click and get started with ease. There is a huge community to help you if you need any help. Also, hosting providers like Bluehost offer free one-click installs for WordPress and will also help you with the technical difficulties with WordPress.
Honestly, both of them are quite good. With Ruby on Rails, it’s not at all easy to start your blog. If you want to put your head on coding and technical things, you can surely use Ruby on Rails. Usually, Ruby on Rails is used to create more complex websites and not just random blogs.
