Need a good Ruby editor or compiler online. You are at the right place; in this article, we will look at some of the best editors to edit and compiler Ruby in the browser.
Ruby is a very elegant programming language and focuses on developer productivity, it is popular for the Rails framework, which is used for web development. While it faces tough competition from frameworks like Node and React, it still is used heavily, and developers love it.
It is worth noting that there are many free Ruby editors available online, but not all are intuitive, ads-free, or simple to use. We have tried to pick some of the best including the official Ruby editor, Repl.It, Rextester, and Rubular among many others.
Also, if you are looking for a feature-rich integrated development environment for Ruby, then you might want to check out the other article here – Picking the Best Ruby IDE
Here are the top editors and online compilers for Ruby.
Ruby Official Online Editor
This is the online Ruby editor at the official Ruby language website, you need not go anywhere else to play around with Ruby code.
For instructions, you can select English, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, and couple more languages. Quite simple to use and comes with only the minimal options –
- Edit – Editor to write, copy/past and making changes to the code
- Run – Execute the code in the editor and see the output in the output window
- Next – You can traverse through the provided lessons and sample code snippets
- Back – Go back to the previous lesson
- Clear – Remove everything from the editor
The editor is useful in completing the online Ruby code lessons, you can try out code snippets right there while going through the coding tutorials.
Repl.It
You can use Repl shell for an online interactive environment to edit, run, and execute Ruby in the browser, it is a simple but feature-rich tool for Ruby learners.
key features of Repl online compiler for Ruby are –
- Import packages from GitHub along with dependencies
- Version control and history tracking
- Option to roll back the code
- Inbuilt debugger for Ruby error handling
- Many examples that can be opened as a starting point to play around with Ruby programming
- Configure theme as light or dark
If you are going through a tutorial, course, or an online textbook that does not have an inbuilt editor and compiler, Repl.it is a perfect option to cut/paste code snippets to run and validate the output.
OneCompiler
You can use OneCompiler’s online Ruby compiler to run, write and share Ruby code online, it is free like most of the other tools mentioned in this article. You can start with Ruby using a boilerplate code given on the website. There are many sample code snippets available.
OneCompiler supports stdin to take user inputs. You can use the STDIN textbox to provide input under the I/O tab, and the output can be printed in the output window.
OnlineGDB
OnlineGDB is relatively new but seems to bring in a lot of features. It supports Ruby and many other programming languages including Java, Python, Scala, C/C++, Groovy, R, etc.
While OnlineGDB provides a debugger, it is not yet supported for Ruby, so debugging is not an option here. I also tried the code beautify feature but that too does not work for Ruby.
So, my take is, you can use this thing to run a few code snippets and play around but do not expect too much for Ruby from this jazzy looking tool.
Paiza.io
This is relatively new and still in the beta mode, but it offers the required features for you to run Ruby code online.
Paiza offers both free and paid versions where the free version has limited functionality and comes with usage limits. While the paid version is more advanced, the free version still includes features like collaboration, fonts adjustment, theme customization, auto-complete Ruby code, gutter on and off, and the option to turn Invisibles on and off.
You can use the Japanese or Spanish interface if you are not comfortable with the English language.
They are also working on supporting a few other languages to help non-English natives.
JDoodle
JDoodle is a popular online compiler for many programming languages, including Ruby. JDoodle snippets can be saved on the disc for later use, or saved in the cloud if you opt to sign in. you can edit Ruby code, execute Ruby Code, share the code URL with others and evaluate the output live in the browser.
Key features are as below –
- Option to add friends and fellow students to work on your code, you can send the invite and talk using computer speakers and mic, or text chat.
- Option to embed editable code snippets on the website and blogs.
- Use of JDoodle API to create your own editor and compiler for Ruby.
- You can also adjust fonts, theme colors, layouts, print the code, executer history etc. and all.
Apart from compiling Ruby, JDoodle supports Scala, Python, C/C++, Java, Kotlin, and many other programming languages.
Rextester – Simple Ruby Online Editor
Want something absolutely simple to run Ruby code snippets online, try Rextester, Rextester is a simple, lightweight, and fast at running ruby code online.
Rextester started off as a regular expression tester tool but later evolved as an online shell to execute code for many programming languages.
After you are done with writing code, you can put it on the wall for public availability, you can also look at code snippets posted by others on the code wall feature of Rextester.
If you want to invite fellow learners to do Ruby coding along with your, just share the URL of your code and you would be looking and working on the same code in no time.
One limitation is that it lets you create only one file, so it is not something to be used for a complicated project but a simple ruby code tester.
RubbyFiddle
RubbyFidlde is another simple shell to execute and run Ruby in the browser. There are some predefined examples that you can pick and run to see the output in the browser. It allows you to select key bindings as per vim or emacs.
Runrb.io
Similar to RubyFiddle, this is also a simple option to run Ruby code inside the browser. RunRb is created by Jason Charnes and Will Glynn and supports Ruby 2.6.1 as of writing this article.
Runrb compiler translates Ruby code to WebAssembly and includes Ruby standard library. .
Rubular
This is not really a ruby editor or compiler but a simple and handy tool to evaluate regular expressions as you type. You can test regular expressions in the browser using Rubular.
The browser-based Rubular editor is built using Ruby, it doesn’t bring any advanced features or options, etc. you can do basic settings like wrap text, show Invisibles, create a permalink of your test, load a pre-existing regular expression to test, and a quick reference to regular expressions.
Closing Thoughts
Desktop tools are getting fast replaced with the online tools for all programming languages, and the same is true even for Ruby language.
For that reason, someone or the other brings up a new coding sandbox for Ruby every few months. Not all are good enough though and die off soon thereafter. The online compilers and editors mentioned in this article are not meant for enterprise-grade development but to simply play around or learn Ruby.
