Musician who accidentally built CD Baby, sold it for $22M, and writes books on how to live
CD Baby, HostBaby, Wood Egg
stack --tool ruby · #42 of 91
Indie makers who build with Ruby (2026)
4 indie makers on IndieMakerList list Ruby in their stack — 2% of makers who share one — including Derek Sivers, David Heinemeier Hansson and Chris Oliver. Below: their products, self-reported revenue and the tools they pair with Ruby.
4
makers
12
products
—
combined revenue*
2
exits
Top indie makers using Ruby
4 active makers, ranked by profile depth, audience and reported revenue.
Creator of Ruby on Rails and Omarchy, co-owner and CTO of 37signals
Ruby on Rails, Basecamp, HEY +1
Self-taught Rails developer behind GoRails, Jumpstart Pro and Hatchbox
GoRails, Jumpstart Pro, Hatchbox
Portland developer running Sidekiq solo, an open-core business in the millions
Sidekiq, FaktorySingle-digit millions per y…
Products built by Ruby makers
A selection of the 12 products shipped by these makers.
Online store and distributor for independent musicians; became the largest seller of independent music online. Sold in 2008 for $22M.
by Derek Sivers
Web hosting for musicians, sold together with CD Baby in 2008.
by Derek Sivers
Ruby on Rails
rubyonrails.org
Open-source full-stack web framework written in Ruby.
by David Heinemeier Hansson
Basecamp
basecamp.com
Project management and team communication tool built by 37signals.
by David Heinemeier Hansson
GoRails
gorails.com
Screencasts and tutorials for Ruby on Rails developers.
by Chris Oliver
Jumpstart Pro
jumpstartrails.com
Ruby on Rails SaaS template with auth, payments, teams and more.
by Chris Oliver
Sidekiq
sidekiq.org
Open-core background job processing for Ruby, with paid Pro and Enterprise tiers.
by Mike Perham
Faktory
contribsys.com
Language-agnostic background job server.
by Mike Perham
Tools commonly used with Ruby
How many Ruby makers also list each tool.
What Ruby makers build
Where Ruby makers are based
Ruby indie makers FAQ
Which indie makers build with Ruby?
Indie makers on IndieMakerList who list Ruby in their stack include Derek Sivers, David Heinemeier Hansson, Chris Oliver and Mike Perham.
How popular is Ruby with indie makers?
4 makers — 2% of the 230 profiles with a listed stack — use Ruby, ranking it #42 of 91 tools used by two or more makers.
What tools do indie makers use with Ruby?
The tools most often listed alongside Ruby are Ruby on Rails (2 makers), PostgreSQL (1 maker), Go (1 maker) and MySQL (1 maker).
What do indie makers build with Ruby?
Makers using Ruby mostly work in Developer Tools (3), Educators & Course Creators (2) and Open Source Makers (2), and have shipped 12 listed products between them.
Know an indie maker who builds with Ruby? Submit a maker to IndieMakerList →
Stack data comes from each maker's posts, interviews and open-source repos. See every tool in the indie maker stack.