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By Luigi Montanez & Ryan Resella

Launched just two years ago, Upworthy has quickly become one of the most popular sites on the Web. According to Quantcast, it's a Top 40 site in the U.S. and is the most visited site hosted on Heroku. And yes, it's powered by Ruby on Rails! Hear the story of how Upworthy started out as a modest Sinatra app, then moved to a monolithic Rails app, and has now been broken up into a set of services powered by Rails. Technical decision-making in the midst of massive growth will be described in detail.

Luigi is the founding engineer at Upworthy, a viral media site that aims to drive massive amounts of attention to the topics that matter most. Before Upworthy, Luigi was a software developer at the Sunlight Foundation. He also co-organizes Code for Atlanta.

Ryan is a Senior Engineer at Upworthy. In 2012 Ryan was an Engineer on the Technology Team at Obama For America that helped re-elect the President of the United States. Prior to OFA, Ryan was a 2011 Inaugural Code for America Fellow and then went on to become Technical Lead at Code for America.

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In the video titled 'You'll Never Believe Which Web Framework Powers Upworthy,' presented by Luigi Montanez and Ryan Resella at RailsConf 2014, the speakers discuss the rapid growth and technological evolution of Upworthy, a highly visited viral media site. Initially launched as a simple Sinatra application, Upworthy has transformed into a robust platform powered by Ruby on Rails, leading to its recognition as one of the most visited sites in the U.S. and the top site hosted on Heroku. The speakers elaborate on the following key points:

- **Early Development**: Upworthy started from modest beginnings with a Sinatra app. The initial choice of technology was influenced by the need for quick deployment and flexibility.
- **Transition to Rails**: As the site gained popularity, there arose a need for a more powerful framework, which led to a transition to a monolithic Rails application that could handle increased traffic and complexity.
- **Microservices Architecture**: To further improve scalability and maintainability in response to their significant growth, Upworthy adopted a microservices architecture, breaking their application into various services built with Ruby on Rails. This shift allowed for more focused development and easier updates.
- **Technical Decision-Making**: The speakers share anecdotes and insights on the technical decision-making processes during this evolution, emphasizing challenges faced during scaling operations and the importance of adaptive strategies in technology.
- **Growth Management**: They discuss how each stage of growth necessitated different architectural decisions and approaches to software development, highlighting the need for robust testing and deployment practices to manage the high traffic efficiently.

In conclusion, Montanez and Resella provide valuable lessons on the importance of being agile and the readiness to pivot in response to user demand and growth. Their insights serve as a guide for other developers and startups navigating similar challenges in the tech landscape.

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