My team is exploring a tech stack where we use Java for backend services and Rails for the frontend web application. The Java side would handle database caching and provide core business services through APIs. Rails would power the web interface and admin dashboard tools.
I’m curious about real-world experiences with this architecture. Are there any companies successfully running Java backend + Rails frontend? What challenges should we expect regarding development workflow, deployment complexity, performance scaling, and API integration between the two systems?
Looking for practical insights from developers who have worked with similar setups rather than theoretical comparisons with other frameworks.
Interesting combo! Don’t see many teams picking this setup, but it could definitely work. Are you going this route because you’ve already got Java devs on the team? Just curious why you chose Rails instead of React or Vue for the frontend.
I worked on a similar setup for two years at a fintech company. The biggest headache? Keeping data models consistent across both systems. Every schema change meant coordinating between Java and Rails teams - total nightmare. We ended up using automated contract testing to catch breaking changes before they hit production. Authentication was tricky too since users needed seamless sessions between the Rails frontend and Java APIs. Performance was solid under heavy load, but debugging problems across the stack boundary sucked without proper monitoring and logging. One nice surprise though - having those clear API boundaries actually forced us to design better interfaces than we probably would’ve with a monolith.
we do sth similar at my place - java microservices with rails frontend. managing deployments can be tricky, but docker really helps. also, api versioning is key between teams or it’ll be a mess later. performance has been pretty good overall.