Does Ruby on Rails Work With Stripe?
Ruby on Rails integrates seamlessly with Stripe for payment processing, with official gems and extensive community support making it a natural choice for Rails applications.
Quick Facts
How Ruby on Rails Works With Stripe
Rails and Stripe work together exceptionally well through the official `stripe` gem, which provides Ruby bindings for the Stripe API. The gem handles authentication, request formatting, and error handling automatically, allowing developers to focus on payment logic rather than HTTP plumbing. Rails' ActiveJob integrations make it straightforward to handle asynchronous webhook processing—a critical pattern for payment systems where Stripe notifies your application of events like successful charges or failed card attempts. The typical architecture involves storing minimal payment data in your Rails database (customer IDs, subscription statuses) while Stripe maintains PCI compliance by handling sensitive card information. Rails' routing and controller patterns pair well with Stripe's webhook endpoints, and the strong parameter filtering prevents mass assignment vulnerabilities when handling payment data. Many Rails developers also leverage the `stripe-rails` gem for additional conveniences like pre-built webhook handlers.
Best Use Cases
Quick Setup
bundle add stripe# Gemfile: gem 'stripe'
# config/initializers/stripe.rb
Stripe.api_key = Rails.application.credentials.dig(:stripe, :secret_key)
# app/controllers/charges_controller.rb
class ChargesController < ApplicationController
def create
intent = Stripe::PaymentIntent.create(
amount: (params[:amount].to_i * 100),
currency: 'usd',
payment_method: params[:payment_method_id],
confirm: true,
metadata: { order_id: params[:order_id] }
)
if intent.status == 'succeeded'
render json: { success: true, intent_id: intent.id }
else
render json: { error: intent.last_payment_error.message }, status: 402
end
end
endKnown Issues & Gotchas
Webhook signature verification skipped or misconfigured, allowing fraudulent webhook injection
Fix: Always verify webhook signatures using Stripe's provided signing secret and the gem's built-in verification—never skip this step even in development
Race conditions when processing webhooks arrive before your client-side confirmation request completes
Fix: Use idempotency keys for API requests and design your webhook handlers to be idempotent; handle duplicate events gracefully
Storing full card details or sensitive data in Rails logs or database
Fix: Never store raw card data—use Stripe tokens and payment method IDs instead; configure Rails to filter sensitive parameters in logs
Forgetting to enable required Stripe API features like payment intents for SCA/3D Secure compliance
Fix: Use Payment Intents API (not legacy Charges API) for modern, PCI-compliant payment handling
Alternatives
- •Django with Stripe (Python alternative with similarly strong integration)
- •Laravel with Stripe (PHP ecosystem with the Cashier package for subscriptions)
- •Next.js with Stripe (JavaScript/TypeScript option with excellent client-side flexibility)
Resources
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