Which version to download?

If you don’t know what version to install and you’re getting started with Ruby, we recommend you use Ruby 2.2.X installers. These provide a stable language and a extensive list of packages (gems) that are compatible and updated.

However, not all packages (gems) are maintained. Some older packages may not be compatible with newer versions of Ruby and RubyInstaller.

To use newer versions you will require some knowledge about compilers and solving dependency issues, which might be too complicated if you just want to play with the language.

Which Development Kit?

Down this page, several and different versions of Development Kits (DevKit) are listed. Please download the right one for your version of Ruby:

• Ruby 2.4.0 and newer: The MSYS2 DevKit is downloaded as the last step of the installation.
• Ruby 2.0.0 to 2.3.x (32bits): mingw64-32-4.7.2
• Ruby 2.0.0 to 2.3.x (64bits): mingw64-64-4.7.2

The RubyInstaller Development Kit (DevKit) is a MSYS/MinGW based toolkit than enables you to build many of the native C/C++ extensions available for Ruby. Starting with Ruby 2.4.0 it is replaced by the MSYS2 toolkit.

Speed and Compatibility

RubyInstaller is compiled with MinGW which offers improved speed and better RubyGem compatibility, including support for many more native C-based extensions such as Ruby FFI, Nokogiri, FXRuby and many others.

Convenience

No additional software is needed if you want to use the executable versions of the RubyInstaller. If you would like to use the 7-Zip archived versions or the Ruby documentation, you will need to download 7-Zip from the 7-Zip website. If you want to use

Documentation

The Ruby core and standard library documentation is part of the installation. As an added convenience for Windows users, we’ve made available the Ruby Core and Standard Library documentation in Compiled HTML Help (CHM) format. It can be downloaded separately for older Ruby versions.

Support

Enjoy, happy Ruby coding, and let us know what you think or if you have any issues at our helpful and friendly RubyInstaller Google Group.