DEV Community

Germán Alberto Gimenez Silva
Germán Alberto Gimenez Silva

Posted on • Originally published at rubystacknews.com on

The Ruby Bindings Every Rails Developer Should Know

#coding #esp32 #programming #ruby

December 3, 2025

By Germán Silva

Bindings are one of the most underrated yet critical pieces of the Ruby ecosystem. They are the bridges that connect Ruby to native libraries, databases, protocols, and even hardware.

Bring Your Next Project to Life with High-Quality Development

Don’t miss the opportunity to take your project to the next level. Whether you want to launch something new or improve an existing platform, we build maintainable, scalable software that empowers your business.

🚀 Available for freelance and team-based projects • Fast replies

If you work with Ruby on Rails, APIs, or IoT integrations, mastering these bindings dramatically improves performance, scalability, and the systems you can build.

Here’s a guide to the most important bindings in 2026 — with real code examples.

Article content

1. Database Bindings

PostgreSQL — pg

Ruby’s most widely used production database binding.


require "pg"

conn = PG.connect(dbname: "mydb")
rows = conn.exec("SELECT * FROM users")
rows.each { |r| puts r["email"] }
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

MySQL — mysql2 


require "mysql2"

client = Mysql2::Client.new(host: "localhost", username: "root")
client.query("SELECT NOW()").each { |r| puts r }
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Redis — redis-rb

Used everywhere: caching, sessions, Sidekiq, ActionCable.


require "redis"

redis = Redis.new
redis.set("counter", 1)
puts redis.get("counter")
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

2. Native Extensions (C Bindings)

Nokogiri (libxml2)

Fast HTML/XML parsing.


require "nokogiri"

html = Nokogiri::HTML("<h1>Hello</h1>")
puts html.css("h1").text
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Oj (fast JSON parser)

Drop-in replacement for json.


require "oj"

json = Oj.dump({ name: "Germán", ok: true })
data = Oj.load(json)
puts data["name"]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

ruby-vips (libvips)

Ultra-fast image processing.


require "vips"

image = Vips::Image.new_from_file("photo.jpg")
thumbnail = image.thumbnail_image(200)
thumbnail.write_to_file("thumb.jpg")
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Typhoeus (libcurl)

Highly concurrent HTTP requests.


require "typhoeus"

response = Typhoeus.get("https://api.example.com")
puts response.body
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

3. Protocol Bindings (Web, Realtime & IoT)

ActionCable (WebSockets in Rails) 


# app/channels/chat_channel.rb
class ChatChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel
  def subscribed
    stream_from "chat"
  end
end
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

gRPC for Ruby 


require "grpc"
MyServiceStub = MyApi::Service::Stub

client = MyServiceStub.new("localhost:50051", :this_channel_is_insecure)
response = client.get_status(MyApi::StatusRequest.new)
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

MQTT — ruby-mqtt (perfect for IoT + ESP32) 


require "mqtt"

MQTT::Client.connect("mqtt://localhost") do |client|
  client.subscribe("esp32/motion")
  client.get do |topic, message|
    puts "Received: #{topic} - #{message}"
  end
end
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This is the exact pattern I use when my ESP32 devices publish sensor events to a Ruby backend.

4. Language / Runtime Interop

mini_racer (V8 engine inside Ruby) 


require "mini_racer"

ctx = MiniRacer::Context.new
puts ctx.eval("1 + 2")
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

JRuby (Ruby on JVM) 


java_import java.util.Date
puts Date.new
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Rutie (Ruby + Rust)

A very small example just to illustrate usage:


#[macro_use]
extern crate rutie;

class!(Hello);

methods!(
  Hello,
  _itself,
  fn say_hello() -> RString {
    RString::new_utf8("Hello from Rust!")
  }
);
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Ruby side:


require "hello"
puts Hello.say_hello
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

5. Hardware & Embedded Bindings

ruby-serialport 


require "serialport"

sp = SerialPort.new("/dev/ttyUSB0", 115200)
sp.write("ping")
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

rpi_gpio (Raspberry Pi GPIO) 


require "rpi_gpio"

RPi::GPIO.set_numbering :bcm
RPi::GPIO.setup 18, as: :output
RPi::GPIO.set_high 18
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Final Thoughts

Bindings are the hidden power behind Ruby’s speed, scalability, and real-world integration capabilities. By mastering them, you unlock the ability to build:

  • high-throughput Rails APIs
  • real-time dashboards
  • efficient image-heavy applications
  • IoT systems powered by ESP32/ESP8266
  • distributed services using gRPC, Redis, or Kafka
  • hardware-enabled automation

If you want to grow as a Ruby developer in 2026 , learn the bindings that connect Ruby to the world.

Article content

Top comments (0)