Meet rv, the super fast no-fuss Ruby version manager

Welcome to rv, the Ruby version manager that revs your Ruby installs so they take just seconds.

In the future, rv can also manage your tools, gems, and packages, faster than you would believe is possible.

rv is greatly inspired by & builds on top of tons of work done by other package managers & their maintainers. See our acknowledgements.

Why rv

We precompile Ruby 3.2+ for macOS & Linux to vastly improve install times & make a number of installation issues a thing of the past.

• Super fast install: rv installs Ruby 3.2+ in seconds.
• Unbreakable: Homebrew updating OpenSSL will never break your Ruby install again.
• Zero compile time: no more waiting 5-40min to compile Ruby on your dev machine or deployment dyno.
• Zero compile errors: your Ruby install won't fail to compile due to low-level libraries being missing or unlinked.
• Eco-friendly: saving minutes of compilation time across thousands of dev machines and deployment dynos across Ruby releases all add up.

Install Benchmark

Here's the install time difference running on a base M5 MacBook Pro in Low Power Mode and High Power Mode:

	seconds	times slower
rv	2.479	1.0x
ruby-build (High Power)	89.611	36.14x
ruby-build (Low Power)	159.752	64.44x

We happen to be using rbenv here, but chruby, mise and other tools all use ruby-build under the hood to compile Ruby during install.

rv install time is constrained by network speed so your mileage will vary. This was run from Copenhagen, Denmark on a reasonably fast connection.

See the benchmark commands we ran

rv install time

time rv ruby install 3.4.7
Downloaded https://github.com/spinel-coop/rv-ruby/releases/latest/download/ruby-3.4.7.arm64_sonoma.tar.gz to ~/.cache/rv/ruby-v0/tarballs/8758fed525bd3750.tar.gz
Installed Ruby version ruby-3.4.7 to ~/.data/rv/rubies

real 0m2.479s
user 0m0.362s
sys  0m0.551s

rbenv + ruby-build install in High Power Mode

time rbenv install 3.4.7
ruby-build: using openssl@3 from homebrew
==> Downloading ruby-3.4.7.tar.gz...
-> curl -q -fL -o ruby-3.4.7.tar.gz https://cache.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/3.4/ruby-3.4.7.tar.gz
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 22.1M  100 22.1M    0     0  11.9M      0  0:00:01  0:00:01 --:--:-- 11.9M
==> Installing ruby-3.4.7...
ruby-build: using libyaml from homebrew
ruby-build: using gmp from homebrew
-> ./configure "--prefix=$HOME/.rbenv/versions/3.4.7" --with-openssl-dir=/opt/homebrew/opt/openssl@3 --enable-shared --with-libyaml-dir=/opt/homebrew/opt/libyaml --with-gmp-dir=/opt/homebrew/opt/gmp --with-ext=openssl,psych,+
-> make -j 10
-> make install
==> Installed ruby-3.4.7 to ~/.rbenv/versions/3.4.7

real 1m29.611s
user 2m54.163s
sys  0m57.157s

rbenv + ruby-build install in Low Power Mode

time rbenv install 3.4.7
ruby-build: using openssl@3 from homebrew
==> Downloading ruby-3.4.7.tar.gz...
-> curl -q -fL -o ruby-3.4.7.tar.gz https://cache.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/3.4/ruby-3.4.7.tar.gz
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 22.1M  100 22.1M    0     0  6721k      0  0:00:03  0:00:03 --:--:-- 6719k
==> Installing ruby-3.4.7...
ruby-build: using libyaml from homebrew
ruby-build: using gmp from homebrew
-> ./configure "--prefix=$HOME/.rbenv/versions/3.4.7" --with-openssl-dir=/opt/homebrew/opt/openssl@3 --enable-shared --with-libyaml-dir=/opt/homebrew/opt/libyaml --with-gmp-dir=/opt/homebrew/opt/gmp --with-ext=openssl,psych,+
-> make -j 10
-> make install
==> Installed ruby-3.4.7 to ~/.rbenv/versions/3.4.7

real 2m39.752s
user 4m41.813s
sys  1m35.644s

Testimonials

"what the heckie that just installed a ruby version for me in .22 seconds???" — c. ruiyi smallbird

"Holy wow that thing _flies_." — Andrea Fomera

Requirements

• Operating Systems: macOS 14+, Linux glibc 2.35+
• Architectures: x86 on Intel, AMD, etc. and arm64 on Apple, Qualcomm, etc.
• Ruby Versions: All non-EOL'ed Ruby versions. Currently Ruby 3.2.x, 3.3.x, 3.4.1 and up.
• Shells: zsh, bash, fish, nushell. See SHELL INTEGRATION for more.

Install

# Homebrew or Linuxbrew
brew install rv

Or, visit the releases page for an installer shell script.

Usage

You call rv ruby run and we'll install Ruby for you on the first run:

time rv ruby run 3.4.7 -- --version

Note

We've prepended time to show how fast rv installs Ruby on the first run, it's not needed to use rv.

For automatic Ruby version selection, like rbenv or chruby, you can add a line of configuration to your shell. After this one-time setup, rv will automatically use .ruby-version or .tool-versions files to give you the requested Ruby. Set or update the version of Ruby used in a project by running rv ruby pin VERSION.

See SHELL INTEGRATION for instructions to configure zsh, bash, fish, and nushell.

Brought to you by Spinel

Spinel.coop makes engineering teams more effective with decades of lessons learned on the core teams of Rails, Hotwire, Bundler, and rbenv. Let us multiply the team you already have.

Similar Work

See Ruby Butler for similar next-level tooling ideas for Ruby.

We appreciate any tooling that improves Ruby and the lives of Ruby developers. We're all richer for people contributing their time & energy to make us all better. If you're reading this and you've contributed to Ruby in any way, thank you!

Future Plans

All-in-one tooling for Ruby developers.

• Install & manage all Ruby versions.
• Manage gems, applications, CLI tools, and scripts, effortlessly.
• Handle everything Ruby provided by rvm, rbenv, chruby, asdf, mise, ruby-build, ruby-install, bundler, and rubygems, all at once.
• Install Ruby and all your gems in seconds, without having to compile anything ever again.
• Install ruby-head versions for easier development for Ruby core contributors.
• mise plugin, so you get fast no-fuss Ruby installs too.

Future features

• Run any gem command instantly, like rvx rails new.
• Run any script, installing all needed gems, like rv run script.rb.
• Install gem CLIs with any needed rubies with rv tool install.
• Install precompiled Ruby versions in seconds with rv ruby install.
• Manage project gems with rv install, rv add, and rv remove.
• Create gems with rv gem, and publish them with rv publish.

See PLANS.md for more on our future plans.

FAQ

Does rv have a website?

Yes! You're looking at it. You can reach this page with the URL rv.dev.

Why are you doing this?

@indirect wrote a blog post about his motivation to create rv.

How do you pronounce rv?

"arr vee", the names of the two letters, spelled out.

Contributing

Install dependencies on macOS or Ubuntu with bin/setup. Make changes, and then run the development binary with bin/rv, or install the development binary to your system with bin/install.

When you're done, make sure to run the tests with bin/test, and the linter with bin/lint. Then, send us a pull request! We love pull requests.

Acknowledgements

rv is heavily inspired by uv, as you might guess from the name.

It also takes inspiration, features, and approaches from Bundler, Frum, Homebrew, npm, Cargo, and Orogene.

We'd also like to thank everyone who has ever worked on a package manager in the past for helping get all of us to where we are today.

License

rv is licensed under either Apache-2.0 or MIT, at your option.

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dually licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.