Question

Having used New Relic before, I know it can measure performance but it’s an external dependency. Now my app contains some faker gem data I noticed some slower performance (loading 1000 user profiles wih attached images).

• Are there any tools/gems to measure performance of a Rails app since this is of course important?
• Are there some docs or general guidance on performance and Rails? I know I can use indexes on tables but if you have large app with thousands of users there must be more you can do to improve performance.

Any suggestions on this topic are welcome. The main question would be: are there local New Relic-like gems to measure an app’s performance so you can make improvements?

Answer 1

There is a Rails guide on Performance testing and benchmarking, with some gem tools at the end of the article (I’ve never tried them).

For performance improvement, here are the first topics I would look:

• indexes, as you said, on foreign keys and on columns often used for searches
• eager loading. Check SQL requests to see if some successive requests could be merged in a single one. Use select when possible.
• page and fragment caching (Caching guide)