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Better WebPerformance with Rails

talk 47 connections

Stefan Wintermeyer's talk at wroclove.rb 2018 on why the first page load must fit within a ~1-second budget and how to achieve it with Rails 5.2. He walks through the network and render stack (DNS, TCP 3-way handshake and slow-start, TLS, HTML/CSS/JS download, ~100ms browser render), uses a minimal Rails webshop (products, reviews, ratings) to show layered caching improvements: fragment caching with touch: true, Russian-doll caching, pre-computing derived values like number_of_stars into the database via callbacks, HTTP ETag / Last-Modified, cron-based cache preheating, and serving pre-gzipped static pages from the public/cache directory directly via nginx. Also covers HTTP/2, Brotli compression, CDN trade-offs, Active Storage for WebP delivery, Heroku vs bare-metal, preload/prefetch/prerender hints, HTTP/2 server push, Apache vs nginx, and concludes that the most important tool is setting an organizational performance time budget. Includes Q&A on caching complexity, N+1 queries, Phoenix/Elixir comparisons, touch on has_many, and CDN services like Akamai.

type
talk
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Ruby on Rails tool
Talk is about improving web performance of Rails apps.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Rails 5.2 tool
Uses Rails 5.2 sample webshop throughout.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Page Load Time Budget concept
Frames the entire talk around a sub-1s render goal.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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TCP Slow Start concept
Explains TCP slow-start as a latency floor.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Waterfall Analysis concept
Demonstrates waterfall diagnosis via webpagetest.org.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Fragment Caching concept
Primary caching technique demonstrated.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Russian Doll Caching concept
Extends fragment caching to nested caches.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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HTTP Caching with ETag and Last-Modified concept
Demonstrates fresh_when for 304 responses.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Cache Preheating concept
Uses cron to pre-populate caches overnight.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Static Page Caching via nginx concept
Describes writing cached pages to public/cache for nginx to serve directly.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Preloading and Prefetching concept
Covers dns-prefetch, preload, prefetch, prerender hints.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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HTTP/2 Server Push concept
Notes server push is powerful but tricky.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Performance Time Budget concept
Closes on time budget as the most important tool.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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nginx tool
Recommended front-end server for caching and HTTP/2.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Apache HTTP Server tool
Mentioned as equivalent alternative to nginx.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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HTTP/2 tool
Recommends enabling HTTP/2 for ~20% gain.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Brotli tool
Recommends Brotli over gzip.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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gzip tool
Baseline compression; recommends pre-gzipping cached files.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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webpagetest.org tool
Tool used to produce demonstration waterfalls.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Active Storage tool
Recommends using for multi-format image delivery.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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WebP tool
Suggested as Chrome-targeted image format via Active Storage.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Heroku tool
Discusses Heroku vs bare-metal trade-offs.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Phoenix tool
Referenced as a much faster alternative for greenfield projects.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Elixir tool
Language underlying Phoenix, noted as fast and easy to test.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Ruby tool
Notes Ruby's speed ceiling and upgrade gains.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Akamai tool
CDN example discussed in Q&A.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Faker tool
Used to seed the sample webshop.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Google company
Cites Google latency experiment showing 100ms slowdown changes user behavior.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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High Performance Browser Networking resource
Recommends as the deeper follow-up reference.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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Stefan Wintermeyer's Rails 5.2 Book resource
Promoted at the end of the talk.
question Is rendering from cached pages with server-side includes possible in Rails?
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Audience Q&A question.
question Does caching still help for complex apps with many models?
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Audience Q&A question.
question Aren't query optimizations a better first step than caching?
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Audience Q&A remark.
question Should touch on belongs_to be avoided in complex apps?
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Audience Q&A challenge about ActiveRecord callbacks.
person Stefan Wintermeyer
authored
Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Delivered the talk at wroclove.rb 2018.
takeaway Set a page-load time budget
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Closing recommendation of the talk.
takeaway Prefer DB-derived columns over recomputed values
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Demonstrated by storing number_of_stars as a column via callbacks.
takeaway Keep cache keys simple
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Warning given during fragment caching section.
takeaway Use touch: true for fragment cache invalidation
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Shown on the reviews belongs_to product relationship.
takeaway Switch on HTTP/2
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Recommended with a one-line nginx config change.
takeaway Prefer Brotli over gzip when available
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Brotli section at end of talk.
takeaway Serve preheated static pages via nginx
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Public/cache directory + expire_cache hook strategy.
takeaway Upgrade Ruby version for free speed
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Raised in Q&A about additional server-side improvements.
takeaway CDN is not always the answer
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Discussed in CDN vs HTTP/2 section.
talk Better WebPerformance with Rails
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wroclove.rb 2018 event
Conference where the talk was given.
talk Cables! Cables! Cables!
related_to
Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Speaker opens by thanking Stefan for the preceding Rails performance talk.
talk LATERAL Joins Rails Performance Lightning Talk
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Better WebPerformance with Rails talk
Replicates the heavy-Rails products/reviews example from the earlier day-one performance talk and applies SQL-level optimization instead of caching.

Provenance

Created
2026-04-17 16:17 seed
Last updated in
Better WebPerformance with Rails — Stefan Wintermeyer at ... 2026-04-17 16:18
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