Ruby on Rails Consulting — practical help when your product needs to move faster.
If you’re carrying tech debt, stuck on an old Rails version, or fighting slow pages and flaky deploys, you don’t need a pep talk—you need a plan.
This page outlines how we upgrade Rails apps to Rails 8 (with Ruby 3.3), fix performance bottlenecks, and set up CI/CD so you can ship reliably.
Whether you’re a startup stabilizing a growing product or an established team preparing for a major release, our approach is hands-on, measured, and focused on outcomes.
Below, we’ll cover five areas: when to hire, upgrades & migrations, performance, DevOps/SRE, and how we work.
1. When to Hire Rails Consultants: Symptoms & Outcomes
If any of these feel familiar, bringing in senior Rails help is usually ROI-positive within weeks:
- Releases are unpredictable; hotfixes dominate the roadmap.
- Rails 5.x/6.x/7.x with unmaintained gems makes upgrades risky.
- p95 interaction delays, timeouts, and N+1 queries hurt conversion.
- CI pipelines take 20–40 minutes; failures feel random.
- On-call is noisy; little visibility into errors and slow queries.
What you should expect from us:
- Predictable releases (stabilized CI, clear branching & reviews)
- Faster app (LCP ≤ 2.5s, INP ≤ 200ms, CLS ≤ 0.1 targets)
- Modern stack (Rails 8 + Ruby 3.3, audited dependencies)
- Sane operations (observability, runbooks, error budgets)
CTA: Book a free consult • contact@asistensia.com
2. Rails Upgrades & Migrations: From Risky to Routine
Typical starting points
- Rails 5.2/6.0/6.1/7.x → Rails 8, plus Ruby 3.3
- Gem ecosystem audit (security, maintenance, forks)
- Frontend: ERB/Hotwire (Turbo/Stimulus) or SPA boundaries
How we de-risk upgrades
- Compatibility audit — deprecations, gems, frameworks, CI.
- Dual-boot (if needed) — run old/new Rails in parallel.
- Incremental PRs — small, testable steps with feature flags.
- Zero/low-downtime deploys — DB migrations, background jobs.
- Rollbacks & monitoring — alerts, dashboards, error tracking.
Deliverables
- Upgrade plan & timeline, risk register, gem decisions
- Passing test suite and green pipeline
- Post-upgrade hardening (security, performance quick wins)
Links: Rails upgrade guide • Related posts
3. Performance & Scalability: Faster Pages, Happier Users
Where we look first
- Database: slow queries, missing indexes, connection pool size
- App layer: N+1s, caching strategy, background vs inline work
- Frontend: image sizing, asset pipeline, hydration cost
- CWV: LCP (hero render), INP (long tasks), CLS (layout shifts)
Common fixes
- Query plans & indexes; partitioning for large tables
- Caching (fragment/low-cardinality), job queues (Sidekiq), rate limits
- CDN for static assets; image compression; proper
width/height - Bundle/JS diet; defer non-critical scripts; preconnect fonts
Measuring impact
- Baseline → changes → remeasure with dashboards & CrUX/PSI
- Target: LCP ≤ 2.5s, INP ≤ 200ms, CLS ≤ 0.1
- Report with before/after, rollback notes, and owner assignments
4. DevOps, SRE & Reliability: CI/CD that You Can Trust
Tooling we prefer
- GitHub Actions, Docker, Terraform, Kubernetes (when warranted)
- Monitoring: Prometheus/Grafana, logs/metrics/traces, Sentry
- Blue/green & canary; feature flags; automated rollbacks
What we implement
- 10–20 min pipelines with test sharding & caching
- Immutable builds and environment parity
- Runbooks & SLIs/SLOs with alerting that respects sleep
Results
- Higher deploy frequency, lower MTTR, calmer on-call
5. How We Work: A Clear Path from Audit to Outcomes
Engagement flow
- Discovery (free) — goals, constraints, success metrics
- Technical audit (1–2 weeks) — code, DB, infra, performance, security
- Plan & estimate — milestones, risks, owner map
- Build & iterate — weekly demos, pairing, PR reviews
- Handover — docs, runbooks, training, backlog for the next quarter
Models
- Fixed-scope delivery (audits, upgrades, performance sprints)
- Team extension (embed senior Rails engineers)
- Maintenance retainer (security updates, SLAs)
Summary: Upgrade, Accelerate, and Ship with Confidence
We help teams modernize Rails apps, speed up pages, and make deploys boring—in the best way. Start with a small, time-boxed audit, then decide how far to take it.
FAQ
Do you work with legacy versions? Yes. We regularly migrate from Rails 5.x/6.x/7.x to Rails 8 and Ruby 3.3.
Can you collaborate with our existing team? Absolutely. We pair, review PRs, and transfer knowledge as we go.
How quickly can you start? Audits often begin within 1–2 weeks. Delivery timelines depend on scope.
Do you handle security and compliance? Yes—dependency audits, secrets management, and least-privilege access. We’ll align with your compliance requirements.
Where are you based? Netherlands, working with clients across EU/UK/US/GCC.
Final Thoughts
Rails is still one of the fastest ways to ship solid product. With the right upgrade path, performance guardrails, and CI/CD, your team can move quickly without breaking things. If that sounds like the next step for your product, we’re ready when you are. Book a consult • contact@asistensia.com
Written by Asistensia.
Asistensia Team helps product teams upgrade to Rails 8, fix performance, and build reliable delivery pipelines. We work as embedded partners or on focused, fixed-scope engagements.