The Roadmap to Upgrade Rails: The Best Code Audit for your App

Discover what your next version jump requires with a detailed report by our Rails upgrade specialists

When the upgrade is finally a priority

Upgrading Rails often lingers at the bottom of to-do lists, with bug fixes and new features taking priority.

But, supporting an old version in production starts to cause issues. An unsupported version means dangerous security holes, a possibly unstable build, and performance problems. Upgrading is finally on the to do list, but there are still lots of unknowns.

Come to grips with the work needed

It can be tough to get your head around planning an upgrade. Even just scoping out the situation would eat up an unknown amount of valuable developer time.

That’s why we offer The Roadmap, an audit that assesses the work required. To make your Roadmap we will use a mix of manual and automated analysis to answer questions such as:

  1. Will it take the developers weeks or months?
  2. Would hiring FastRuby.io be within budget?
  3. Are there potentially problematic monkey patches?
  4. What migration options are available, such as moving from Paperclip to ActiveStorage?
  5. How long will migrations take, such as protected_attributes to strong params?

That way you can decide what’s best for your team and properly allocate resources.

We have upgraded over 100 applications!

Use our experienced specialists to audit your code

We have completed over 100 upgrades, ranging anywhere from 5 to 35 weeks.

We’re regularly asked for rough estimates but without seeing the codebase the best we can say is it is probably more than $20,000. We have even upgraded applications that took upwards of $200,000. The only way to narrow it down is by diving in.

Each audit takes two developers around 10 to 15 days. They manually look at every gem, deprecation warning and changelog to determine whether this will affect your project or not. Our scripts will assess technical debt, perform static code analysis, and find roadblocks in your upgrade path.

The result is The Roadmap to Upgrade Rails. It is a 15-50 page document, laying out every issue to create an action plan and time estimate to upgrade to the next major Rails version.

9 steps to create a code audit and action plan

  1. 1.

    Setup and admin

    We have a call to discuss your application and requirements, then sort out contracts, NDAs and source code access.

  2. 2.

    Code coverage and quality checks

    Run SimpleCov and merge the code coverage results if needed to determine the required QA support.

  3. 3.

    Assess technical debt

    Find any syntax problems and check the difficulty in bringing them up to date.

  4. 4.

    Challenging hotspots

    Look for complex code with little to no test coverage.

  5. 5.

    Analyze dependencies

    Calculate the compatibility with the next major version of Rails and the ease of correcting them.

  6. 6.

    Check incompatible gems

    List every outdated gem and whether removal, replacement or patching is possible.

  7. 7.

    Look at the required steps

    Define which update steps apply to the codebase and each version jump.

  8. 8.

    Create an action plan

    Write out a full list, typically 40-90 tasks, of everything that needs doing to upgrade your application.

  9. 9.

    Double-blind estimates

    Two of our developers will each come up with a best and worst case estimate, used to calculate time and costs.

At every step we will use our experience to answer questions such as:

  1. How complex will this change be in your application?
  2. What are the implications, will every model need updating?
  3. Are there monkey patches this change will affect, if so can it be easily removed?

It is about more than knowing which gems need updating. We look at the codebase as a whole, looking at how the pieces interact to see the side effects of any changes.

A step by step upgrade plan

We don't give you generic one-size-fits-all advice. The Roadmap to Upgrade Rails is a 15-50 page plan specific to your application, laying out how to upgrade to the next major Rails version. It is broken down into:

Critical Issues
Text Coverage Priority
Complexity Analysis
Action Plan

Followed by a best and worst case estimate of the time and cost required for each minor release jump. Once we have sent you The Roadmap you will have a call with two of our developers to talk through any questions you might have.

You will be under no obligation to hire FastRuby.io to perform the upgrade. Some of our customers use The Roadmap as a guide to perform the upgrade themselves. However, we are happy to discuss next steps on the call if you are interested in having us take care of everything.

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  • "Working with FastRuby.io engineers was great. They were very on the ball, asking good questions, and they had a high attention to detail. They're very good at what they do. […] 10/10, I would have no reservations recommending this service to my friends, especially early-stage start-ups."

    Nathan Broadbent, Founder at DocSpring

  • “The roadmap proved to be useful both in terms of the information that it provided, but also in terms of building my confidence in OmbuLabs ability to deliver the estimate."

    Marcus McLaughlin, Head of Engineering at Amitree

  • "The FastRuby.io team executed a full upgrade of our application from Rails 4.0 to 5.1, including preparation for an eventual 5.2 upgrade. The team adapted to our environment and kept a clear focus on the goal, resisting the temptation of feature-type distractions. Their effort allowed us to keep up to date with Rails versions without detracting from progress on other goals."

    Ben Langfeld, Solutions Architect at Power HRG

  • "The FastRuby.io team exceeded our expectations. They went above and beyond and tried to help out even when the contract was up. They were willing to integrate with our team, and worked with the Junior Developer on our team to get to full productivity."

    Will Bridges, Director of Engineering at Storenvy

Money back guarantee

Inquire today

Click below to ask about our availability. We are happy to jump on a call to discuss your project and show you an example Roadmap.

The Roadmap to Upgrade Rails costs $12,000, with a 2-3 week turnaround depending on our availability.