Knowing what software is popular, current and updated regularly is a crucial aspect to developing successful websites. All developers benefit from being knowledgeable about what software is kept up to date but for Ruby on Rails developers this is doubly true. Enter Ruby Toolbox, a website tracking Rails plugin popularity on Github.The reason Ruby Toolbox is so valuable is because it is current and offers you a snapshot of the past 60 days of activity. In the world of Ruby on Rails, things change rapidly, and last year’s solution may not work with this year’s release of Rails.

Searching on Google for the best solutions in Rails can be a daunting task, especially if you don’t know what options are available. There are simply so many different considerations that it’s easy to overlook features. Having a site like Ruby Toolbox at your disposal is a tremendous boon to productivity.

I’d wager that a part of the usefulness comes from simply having a “checklist” to go through for your site. As each project comes along, you can look at the feature requirements and then choose your tools: RSS feeds, SEO-friendly URLs, CSS frameworks, you name it, and if it’s a useful acronym that eases development, chances are they’ve got it!