How to Scale RoR Applications: Lessons from Shopify and GitHub

You built your product with Ruby on Rails for a reason. It helped you launch fast, iterate quickly, and find your audience. That early-stage speed is exactly why Ruby on Rails remains a favorite for startups.

But success brings new challenges. You notice the database groaning under load. Pages that used to snap onto the screen now take a second too long. You might even be asking the tough question: "Is Rails still the right choice for us?"

Look at Shopify, processing Black Friday-level traffic every single day. Or GitHub, handling millions of developers and repositories. They didn't abandon Rails. They scaled it.

Their journey shows that scaling isn't about a single magic bullet. It's a series of practical, deliberate steps. Here’s what we can learn from them.

Practical Steps & Strategies to Scale a Ruby on Rails App

Scaling Ruby on Rails app isn’t about reinventing the wheel. It’s about applying a series of proven strategies that companies like Shopify and GitHub have already tested at massive scale. Here are five practical steps you can take to grow your app without losing speed or reliability.

1. Keep the Core Simple

Before any complex infrastructure, there was a simple, well-built Rails app.

• Both Shopify and GitHub resisted the urge to over-engineer early on. They focused on core features that users actually needed, keeping their codebase clean and easy to understand.

The lesson: Don't over-engineer early. A monolithic Rails app is not a liability; it's your greatest asset for moving quickly. Only consider breaking it apart when you have a clear, performance-related reason to do so.

2. Optimize the Database

As your app grows, the database is almost always the first thing to slow down. The solution isn't just a bigger server; it's smarter strategies. Rails gives a solid foundation out of the box, with advantages that stay relevant as your app grows.

• Optimize Relentlessly: This is the first step. Are your queries efficient? Use database indexes wisely. A single missing index can cripple performance. Both companies invested heavily in monitoring and optimizing queries from the start.
• Split Logic (Partitioning): GitHub's approach was to split their single database into smaller, logical databases, one for users, another for repositories, another for issues. This prevents one busy part of the app from slowing down everything else.
• Split Data (Sharding): Shopify went a step further with sharding. This means splitting a single data type (like all store data) across multiple databases based on a key, like a shop ID. All data for Shop A is on one database, and all data for Shop B is on another. This is how they handle millions of unique stores.

What you can do: Start with optimization. Use tools like explain to analyze slow queries. Add indexes. Before you consider sharding, ensure you’ve squeezed all the performance you can from your current setup.

3. Use Background Jobs for Heavy Work

Your application doesn't need to do everything the moment a user clicks a button. Pushing heavy work into the background is one of the highest-impact changes you can make.

• Lesson from GitHub: Processing Git operations or sending notification emails doesn't happen instantly. They use background job systems like Sidekiq to handle this work asynchronously. This keeps the user experience fast and responsive.
• Lesson from Shopify: When you place an order, the site confirms it immediately. The payment processing, inventory updates, and receipt emails are all handled later in the background.

What you can do: Identify any process in your app that takes more than a few hundred milliseconds. If the user doesn't need to wait for it to finish (like sending an email, generating a report, processing an image), make it a background job.

4. Break Work into Smaller Services (When Needed)

A single Rails app can take you very far. But eventually, certain features become so demanding that they need their own dedicated attention.

• Shopify didn't start with a microservices architecture. They began with a monolith and only later extracted specific, high-load functions like payments or search into separate, smaller services that could be scaled independently.

The lesson: Don't break things up prematurely. Let your monolithic app grow until you identify clear, isolated pain points. Then, and only then, consider extracting that functionality into a smaller, separate service.

5. Monitor and Test Everything

At a small scale, you might notice issues yourself. At a large scale, small errors can cause major outages before anyone even realizes it.

• Both Shopify and GitHub rely on robust, automated testing and comprehensive monitoring systems. They know the health of their application at all times and can catch performance degradation or errors before they affect users.

The takeaway: Investing in monitoring is necessary for growth. You can't fix what you can't see.

From Startup to Scale: Rails Is Built for Growth

Scaling a Ruby on Rails app is not about abandoning the framework. Shopify and GitHub prove that Rails can power some of the world’s largest platforms when used wisely. The path is clear:

• Start simple and focus on what users need.
• Watch and optimize your database.
• Move heavy work into the background.
• Break things into smaller parts only when necessary.
• Monitor and test everything as you grow.

At Softices, we’ve seen these lessons play out with the businesses we work with. Many start small, with a single Rails app, and then grow into platforms that serve thousands of users. With the right approach, Rails gives you the foundation to move fast at the beginning and the strength to scale when success comes.

If your Rails app is starting to feel the growing pains, remember: you don’t need to switch frameworks. You just need the right strategies and the right Ruby on Rails development partner to scale with confidence.