# phusion/traveling-ruby

Self-contained Ruby binaries that can run on any Linux distribution and any macOS machine.

Repository: https://github.com/phusion/traveling-ruby
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/traveling-ruby
Homepage: http://FooBarWidget.github.io/traveling-ruby
Language: Shell
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-03T15:26:34+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 66/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 95, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4294, "days_push": 30, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2137, forks 115 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:18.088618+00:00)

## What it is
Traveling Ruby provides self-contained, portable Ruby binaries that run on any Linux distribution, macOS machine, and (with caveats) Windows. It lets developers bundle a Ruby runtime with their app so end users can run it without installing Ruby or gems.

## Use cases
- distribute a Ruby CLI tool without requiring users to install Ruby
- bundle a Ruby runtime into a single tar.gz package for end users
- avoid building OS-specific DEB/RPM/pkg packages for every distro version
- ship a Ruby app to non-programmer users who may have the wrong Ruby version
- create portable sysadmin automation scripts that run anywhere
- package a Ruby desktop or command-line app for macOS and Linux

## When to choose
- you distribute Ruby command-line tools or apps to non-Ruby end users
- you want a single package instead of per-distro installation packages
- you need a predictable, pinned Ruby version bundled with your app
- you want to avoid heavyweight tooling like Omnibus and VM fleets

## When to avoid
- you are building web applications deployed on servers where you control the runtime
- your users are Ruby developers comfortable with rbenv/RVM and Bundler
- you need full Windows support without caveats
- you need a package manager-integrated installation rather than a tarball

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: developer-tools, build-tool, package-manager, cli
- domain: developer-tools, cross-platform, programming-languages
- platform: windows, cli, cross-platform
- tags: portable-ruby, ruby-distribution, self-contained-binaries, app-packaging, end-user-distribution, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- phusion/traveling-ruby (main) score 66

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:18.088618+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:51:51.175510+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/phusion/traveling-ruby (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:18.088618+00:00, sha 462904b22067)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.