Top Ruby on Rails Gems for a Fabulous Frontend

💎 Make Your Rails UI Shine! Top Ruby on Rails Gems for a Fabulous Frontend ✨

When it comes to building beautiful user interfaces in Ruby on Rails, the right gems can save you hours of styling, debugging, and reinventing the wheel. 🚀 Whether you want sleek modals, form helpers, component-based design, or animations—Rails has a gem for that.

Here’s a curated list of the most powerful gems that can make your Rails views visually stunning and highly functional. Let’s dive in! 👇

1️⃣ ViewComponent – Build Reusable UI Components 🧩

🔗 https://github.com/github/view_component

Features:

• Encourages component-based design (like React).
• Makes views testable, reusable, and modular.
• Reduces HTML duplication.

Example:

# app/components/card_component.rb
class CardComponent < ViewComponent::Base
  def initialize(title:)
    @title = title
  end
end

<!-- app/components/card_component.html.erb -->
<div class="card">
  <h2><%= @title %></h2>
  <%= content %>
</div>

<%= render CardComponent.new(title: "My Card") do %>
  <p>This is the body!</p>
<% end %>

✅ Why Use It? Cleaner views, organized partials, and a better development experience!

2️⃣ TailwindCSS-Rails – Modern Utility-First CSS 🎨

🔗 https://github.com/rails/tailwindcss-rails

Features:

• Integrates TailwindCSS seamlessly into Rails.
• No need to set up Node.js or Webpack.
• Use utility classes to design fast without writing custom CSS.

Example:

rails new myapp --css=tailwind

<div class="bg-blue-500 text-white p-4 rounded-xl shadow-lg">
  Beautiful UI with Tailwind!
</div>

✅ Why Use It? Rapid UI development with minimal CSS boilerplate. Tailwind is 🔥!

3️⃣ Simple Form – Beautiful Forms with Less Code 📝

🔗 https://github.com/heartcombo/simple_form

Features:

• Simplifies Rails forms with less repetition.
• Easily integrates with Bootstrap or Tailwind.

Example:

<%= simple_form_for @user do |f| %>
  <%= f.input :email %>
  <%= f.input :password %>
  <%= f.button :submit %>
<% end %>

✅ Why Use It? Clean forms, less markup, and better validations with styling support!

4️⃣ Draper – Decorate Your Models for Better Views 👑

🔗 https://github.com/drapergem/draper

Features:

• Separates view logic from models.
• Create decorators to format data specifically for UI.

Example:

# app/decorators/user_decorator.rb
class UserDecorator < Draper::Decorator
  def full_name
    "#{object.first_name} #{object.last_name}".titleize
  end
end

<%= @user.decorate.full_name %>

✅ Why Use It? Keeps your models slim and your view logic clean and readable.

5️⃣ Heroicon – Beautiful Icons with Tailwind ❤️

🔗 https://github.com/excid3/heroicon

Features:

• Adds Heroicons (by Tailwind Labs) to Rails views.
• Works seamlessly with TailwindCSS.
• Comes in solid and outline versions.

Example:

<%= heroicon "user-circle", variant: :solid, options: { class: "w-6 h-6 text-blue-500" } %>

✅ Why Use It? Quickly add SVG icons with zero hassle and perfect styling!

6️⃣ Animagic – Sweet Animations for Your Rails Views 🪄

🔗 https://github.com/kevinb9n/animagic

Features:

• Add CSS animations easily using helpers.
• Works well with Bootstrap or custom styles.
• Animate on page load or user action.

Example:

<div class="animate__animated animate__fadeInUp">
  Hello, I fade in!
</div>

✅ Why Use It? Breathe life into your UI with subtle animations that make a difference.

7️⃣ Stimulus-Rails – JavaScript the Rails Way 🚀

🔗 https://github.com/hotwired/stimulus-rails

Features:

• Add interactive behavior using Stimulus.js.
• No messy JavaScript files—components are scoped.
• Built by Basecamp, just like Rails!

Example:

<div data-controller="counter">
  <button data-action="click->counter#increment">+</button>
  <span data-counter-target="count">0</span>
</div>

// app/javascript/controllers/counter_controller.js
export default class extends Controller {
  static targets = ["count"]
  increment() {
    this.countTarget.textContent++
  }
}

✅ Why Use It? Add JavaScript behavior without leaving Rails conventions.

8️⃣ Pagy – Smart Pagination That Looks Great 📄➡️📄

🔗 https://github.com/ddnexus/pagy

Features:

• Fast and lightweight pagination.
• Offers helpers for Bootstrap, Tailwind, or plain HTML.
• Easily customizable UI.

Example:

@pagy, @posts = pagy(Post.all)

<%= pagy_nav(@pagy) %>

✅ Why Use It? Super efficient and design-ready pagination—better than Kaminari or WillPaginate!

🏁 Wrapping Up

With these Ruby on Rails gems, you can:

✅ Reduce boilerplate ✅ Write modular & maintainable views ✅ Boost your frontend UI/UX instantly ✅ Stay within Rails conventions

💡 Pro Tip: Combine TailwindCSS, ViewComponent, and Heroicon to build a component-based UI system that feels as modern as React or Vue!