Lessons from Migrating a Legacy Frontend to Hotwire
Radan Skorić • Amsterdam, Netherlands • Talk

Date: September 04, 2025
Published: not published
Announced: May 20, 2025

Is Hotwire just for `rails new` scenarios and not worth it for mature applications? Absolutely not.

I share my learnings from leading a migration of Halalbooking.com, a large hotel booking website, from a mix of technologies centered on React to Hotwire.

Even though we couldn't enable Turbo Drive, we got a huge DX and performance boost from using other parts of Hotwire, making the migration more than worth it.

I’ll share specific examples and lessons learned along the way. You'll leave optimistic about introducing Hotwire to a mature codebase.

As a bonus, you’ll see:
- When it's beneficial
- How fast it pays back
- How to introduce it gradually
- Two concrete examples of complex Hotwire UIs

Rails World 2025