# Rails vs. Turbogears

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-vs-turbogears/115221>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [September 21, 2007, 10:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-vs-turbogears/115221 "2007-09-21T22:39:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![stefankroes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@stefankroes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stefankroes)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 10:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-vs-turbogears/115221/1 "2007-09-21T22:39:51Z")

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Hi guys.

My team is evaluating Turbogears versus Ruby on Rails for an upcoming  
project. I have this very strong feeling that we should go for Rails,  
but apparently I cannot word it well enough. I’ve been Googling for a  
while, but all I’m able to find are one-year old discussions, which I  
don’t feel hold true anymore. Thus, I try to take it here.

To be perfectly honest, I feel that Turbogears is vastly inferior to  
Rails. I didn’t find a single relevant feature in Turbogears, that I  
wasn’t there in Rails. Yet, I can name quite a list for the reverse.  
Can you guys help me with the argumentation? And do you know of any  
comparisons that are up-to-date?

Thanks.

/Stefan

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stefankroes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@stefankroes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stefankroes)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 11:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-vs-turbogears/115221/2 "2007-09-21T23:00:41Z")

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Stefan K. wrote:

> Hi guys.
> 
> My team is evaluating Turbogears versus Ruby on Rails for an upcoming  
> project. I have this very strong feeling that we should go for Rails,  
> but apparently I cannot word it well enough. I’ve been Googling for a  
> while, but all I’m able to find are one-year old discussions, which I  
> don’t feel hold true anymore. Thus, I try to take it here.
> 
> To be perfectly honest, I feel that Turbogears is vastly inferior to  
> Rails. I didn’t find a single relevant feature in Turbogears, that I  
> wasn’t there in Rails. Yet, I can name quite a list for the reverse.  
> Can you guys help me with the argumentation? And do you know of any  
> comparisons that are up-to-date?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> /Stefan

Why would they consider Turbogear over Django? well, nevermind. I  
prefer Ruby code over Python in any case.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stefankroes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@stefankroes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stefankroes)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2007, 1:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-vs-turbogears/115221/3 "2007-09-22T01:19:05Z")

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Hi, I was able to recommend Ruby on Rails to a client after showing him  
a  
prototype of one of the components from the spec. It worked much better  
in  
conjunction with documentation. After my client saw the prototype, they  
were sold on the idea on using Rails. BTW, this was a Rails vs Django  
decision. Furthermore, I feel that it’s always good to understand other  
frameworks to make better arguments to not use or use them. Now, I have  
a  
specification that’s implemented using the following frameworks:

Ruby on Rails  
Seaside  
Zend Framework

I need to complete the documentation which provides metrics to present  
to  
potential clients in the future. Also, I need to provide other  
frameworks  
for the presentation. For example, Python Zope and [ASP.Net](http://ASP.Net) (C#) are  
possible addition. Well, I must go and I wish you the best of luck.

-Conrad

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stefankroes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@stefankroes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stefankroes)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2007, 6:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-vs-turbogears/115221/4 "2007-09-23T06:18:42Z")

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Have your team look at SQL on Rails – much simpler than those other  
frameworks:  
[http://www.sqlonrails.org/](http://www.sqlonrails.org/)

There’s a good screencast there too.

- Jeremy

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stefankroes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@stefankroes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stefankroes)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2007, 5:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-vs-turbogears/115221/5 "2007-09-23T05:20:39Z")

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Stefan K. wrote:

> wasn’t there in Rails. Yet, I can name quite a list for the reverse.  
> Can you guys help me with the argumentation? And do you know of any  
> comparisons that are up-to-date?
> 
> Thanks.

The comparison is not up-to-date and is superficial but take a look at  
Sean Kelly’s Better Web App Development video:

[http://oodt.jpl.nasa.gov/better-web-app.mov](http://oodt.jpl.nasa.gov/better-web-app.mov)

It’s been a while since I’ve looked at TurboGears but at the time I did  
my impression was that it had a lot less “magic” than Rails, which is  
good or bad depending on your preference about that sort of thing, but  
it does make for more code writing, and it felt sort of “awkward” given  
that it is a “mashup” of a bunch of different stuff bolted together  
rather than a cohesive stack that was extracted from a real app like  
Rails and Django were. That bolted together philosophy is evident in  
their 2.0 plans where they plan on swapping out many if not most of the  
major components wholesale for presumably better ones.

–  
Michael W.