Choices to make in a new Rails project.

TechDecisions.md

Team Support

Source Code Control

Github
Alternative: Bitbucket, git (private server)

Time Tracking

None
Alternative: Pivotal Tracker, client system

Management/Document Repo

2nd git repo
Alternative: Basecamp

Chat

Slack
Alternative: Campfire

Issue Tracking

Pivotal Tracker with Lighthouse

Continuous Integration

Codeship
Alternative: Travis CI, tddium, and Jenkins

Monitoring

Exception Tracking

Bugsnag, Logentries, Papertrail
Alternative: Airbrake, Errbit, Exception Notifier

Performance Monitoring

New Relic
Alternative: Librato

Uptime Checking

New Relic
Alternative: Pingdom

Analytics

Google Analytics
Alternative: gaug.es, Sumall

Basics

Framework

Rails 4
Alternative: Rails API

E-Commerce Platform

Spree

Database

PostgreSQL 9.x

NoSQL

Redis
Alternative: MongoDB

View Authoring

Slim
Alternative: HAML, ERB

Form Builder

Simple Form
Alternative: Formtastic

CSS Authoring

SASS/Compass
Alternative: CSS

JavaScript Library

jQuery
Alternative: plain js with CoffeeScript

Controller Abstraction

None, what's built into Rails 4 is good enough.

UI Framework

Twitter Bootstrap
Alternative: Foundation, Compass with Susy and UI Packs

Testing

BDD

None

Test Library

RSpec
Alternative: Test::Unit

JavaScript Testing

Jasmine
Alternative: CasperJS, QUnit

Integration Testing

Capybara with Poltergeist
Alternative: PhantomJS with CasperJS, Capybara-webkit

Test Support

FactoryGirl, Faraday, Shoulda
Alternative: VCR, Typhoeus, MockSMTP

Deployment

Main Deployment tool

Codeship
Alternative: Docker, Dokku, Capistrano if not on Heroku

Library Distribution

Bundler

Asset Packaging

Rails 4 Asset Pipeline
Alternative: Broccoli

Support Libraries

Authentication/Authorization

Devise, Pundit, OmniAuth
Alternative: CanCanCan

Attachments

Carrierwave
Alternative: Paperclip

Credit Card Processing

ActiveMerchant
Alternative: Spreedly or hand-rolled code

Infrastructure

Hosting Company

Heroku
Alternative: DigitalOcean, AppFog, AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Web Server

Puma

Email Server

Mandrill
Alternative: Google Apps

Server Management

None
Alternative: Docker, Puppet, Chef

Backup Strategy

TBD
Alternative: Heroku PG Backups, S3cmd

Credit Card Gateway

Braintree with transparent redirect
Alternative: Spreedly, Stripe