Rails is a full-stack framework for developing database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Control pattern. From the Ajax in the view, to the request and response in the controller, to the domain model wrapping the database, Rails gives you a pure-Ruby development environment. To go live, all you need is an account from SunsetHost. Our setup uses mod_rails with apache2. This setup has proven to out perform other mongrel + nginx deployments.