Optimistic Locking assumes that a database transaction conflict is very rare to happen. It uses a version number of the record to track the changes. It raise an error when other user tries to update the record while it is lock.
usage
Just add a lock_version column to the table you want to place the lock and Rails will automatically check this column before updating the record.
Pessimistic locking assumes that database transaction conflict is very likely to happen. It locks the record until the transaction is done. If the record is currently lock and the other user make a transaction, that second transaction will wait until the lock in first transaction is release.
usage