pry-rails VS Devise

There are a few options for this behavior. There is https://github.com/pry/pry-rails which allows you to set break points in your code that does exactly what you're describing when it's hit. Or there's https://github.com/BetterErrors/better_errors. This one does a pretty page when an error happens with a live console open on the page you can use.

Have you seen the pry-rails gem, it's really helpful if you want to see methods implementations and classes. You can set it as your default rails console. And you can combine it with pry.binding for better debugging

pry-rails and amazing_print for better rails console

However for smaller apps it might be an overkill. In "real-life" production systems, overengineering is one of the biggest crimes. This is true any framework and technology, so in Rails you might want to use Rodauth since it is big and interesting and challenging, but then again, if you are building a simple greenfield MVP you do not have the time or need, for a big, complex solution. In those cases Rails developers usually go for Devise. It is one of the most known Rails gems, in multiple Rails surveys it was both number 1 in popularity, likability and "most frustrating" rankings.

Since Rails 7, there's more and more tooling that enables us, developers, to roll our own authentication. Devise is great and has been an amazing companion over the years. It also has this neat little feature - an authenticated route constraint which "hides" certain routes from people that are not signed in.

[changelog] https://github.com/heartcombo/devise/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md [upgrade guide] https://github.com/heartcombo/devise/wiki/How-To:-Upgrade-to-Devise-4.9.0-%5BHotwire-Turbo-integration%5D

As much as this article is about user authorization, there's something important we need to cover: user authentication. Without it, any authorization policies we try to define later on will be useless. But there is no need to write authentication from scratch. Let's use Devise.

With around 50 new gems released daily, it is common to use trending libraries for managing everyday tasks. You probably use Devise for authentication, Cancan for authorization, Kaminari for pagination, or run tests with Rspec.

Devise is an authentication library built on top of Warden, a Rack-based authentication framework.

devise: An authentication library designed for Rails

I used Devise, this is a Ruby on Rails app

In this article, we will explore how to implement authentication in a Rails 7 application using the popular devise gem. Authentication is a crucial aspect of web development, allowing users to securely access and interact with your application. By following this step-by-step guide, you will learn how to set up devise, configure authentication routes, create user models, and enhance your application with authentication features.