For Ruby developers who have ever been told that Rails won’t scale, Persona is a perfect counterexample. Their identity verification product helps global companies verify users across 200+ countries, processing passports, government IDs, and digital credentials with millisecond precision. And Rails is at the center of it all.

“We chose Ruby on Rails because its emphasis on convention over configuration helps us avoid common pitfalls and keeps our focus on identity problems,” says Charles Yeh, CTO at Persona. “One of our biggest technical challenges is domain modeling—defining and evolving complex real-world concepts in software—and Ruby on Rails’ emphasis on clear, maintainable models made it a natural fit for us.”

Rails enables Persona to support everything from basic verifications to high-risk workflows in heavily regulated industries such as fintech and healthcare. From day one, this choice has allowed the team to stay ahead of the ever-changing threat and compliance landscape.

“Rails enabled us to ship quickly without compromising quality as we scaled,” says Yeh. “Its flexibility made it easy to adapt to the ever-evolving regulatory and fraud landscapes, while its rich ecosystem of tools and libraries helped us sustain our development velocity as our team expanded.”

Even as they’ve started working with new technologies like AI, Persona has remained a Rails-first company. While much of the fraud prevention world builds on Python, their team is finding ways to integrate advanced signal intelligence and decisioning models into their Ruby stack.

“As a Rails-first company, we’ve been exploring ways to bridge the gap between Ruby and the Python-heavy AI ecosystem,” Yeh explains. “This includes integrating AI-driven decisioning and risk signals while continuing to improve our no-code tooling.”

Their engineering culture also reflects this pragmatism and care.

“We have a collaborative, fast-moving culture where engineers have real ownership over what they build,” says Yeh. “We value craftsmanship, learning, and using the right tool for the job—and Rails continues to be one of our favorites.”

That investment in Ruby will continue to grow this year as Persona scales its tech team. 

“We plan to continue growing our engineering team, including Ruby engineers,” says Yeh. “As our customer base and product surface expand, we need more builders to help us scale. We’re always looking for talented engineers who care about craftsmanship and impact.”

For Yeh and the team, Rails remains a competitive advantage, not a constraint.

“Rails is still one of the fastest ways to start with a strong foundation that works in production at a global scale,” he says. “Its mature ecosystem and conventions help teams avoid common pitfalls and stay focused on customer value. For early-stage startups or companies operating in rapidly evolving industries, that combination of speed and adaptability can be a game-changer.”

As a sponsor of RailsConf 2025, Persona hopes to serve as an example of what’s possible with Rails. 

“We hope to show that Rails is still a great choice for building scalable, production-grade systems in high-stakes industries like identity,” says Yeh. “We’re continuing to invest in performance, security, and best practices, and we aim to share our insights with the broader community.”

The Persona team will be at RailsConf 2025 in Philadelphia this summer, connecting with fellow Rubyists and sharing how Rails continues to power their work at scale.

Tickets for RailsConf (July 8–10 in Philadelphia, PA) are on sale now.