In general, if &quot;bloat&quot; is an issue for you, I&#x27;d highly recommend languages&#x2F;frameworks where the philosophy is more Unix-like. Rails has always been opinionated about less configuration at the risk of more bloat - and this has advantages for certain teams and certain projects.<p>For example, Node&#x2F;NPM&#x2F;Express&#x2F;etc. all have a philosophy the opposite of Rails bloat, but often require more configuration, and solid knowledge of the underlying middleware.<p>The tradeoff between these two approaches is one many engineers need to make (e.g., the more recent Gulp vs WebPack has some similarities to this debate), and this is a common debate that will likely continue for years in the future. Pick whatever works best for your philosophy, your team, and the given project.