All I need is ActiveRecord and ActiveMailer, should I use Rails/Merb?

Question

I have a small web application that is currently running on Sinatra. It only has two pages so I don't really need controllers or many views. I have included ActiveRecord to interact with a database and ActiveMailer to send and receive mail.

Would it be worth it to use Rails, or Merb on a project as small as this? I find myself adding features that are included in Rails. I haven't had any experience with Merb before so I don't really know if that would be a suitable option. But from what I hear Merb may be the way to go on a project that only needs a few components.

Thanks.

Answer 1

No need to switch to Rails if your already running on Sinatra for a small project. You can use ActiveRecord and ActiveMailer outside of Rails.

Answer 2

Merb is merging with Rails for Rails version 3.0. As part of this process, the core Rails architecture is going to be "merbified" so as to be more easily configured to only use the particular components you need.

There may going to be a point as your application grows that you find yourself reinventing features that already exists, in this case I would consider switching frameworks.

Personally, I use Rails even for quite small projects. It means I have a single framework and deployment environment for everything that I work on.

Answer 3

I use Sinatra often for stuff much bigger than what you describe. What features of Rails do you find you are needing to add? If it's just stuff like 5.hours.ago and stuff, you could always: a) pull that part of the code out of activesupport and paste it into a 'common'/similar file in your project or b) just require activesupport and use it's features.