Pundit is a popular authorisation gem for Rails that organizes permission logic into simple, testable policy classes.
Instead of scattering access rules across controllers and models, Pundit encapsulates them in plain Ruby objects, making the intent of each rule explicit and easy to audit.
It integrates naturally with Rails by adding authorise calls in controllers and helpers for views.
Its strengths are clarity, testability, and maintainability in growing applications, however, a weakness is that for extremely complex role and permission hierarchies, you may need additional abstractions or combine it with gems such as Rolify.
Alternatives include CanCanCan for role-based authorisation and Action Policy, a newer, actively maintained gem with similar goals but more advanced features.
Instead of scattering access rules across controllers and models, Pundit encapsulates them in plain Ruby objects, making the intent of each rule explicit and easy to audit.
It integrates naturally with Rails by adding authorise calls in controllers and helpers for views.
Its strengths are clarity, testability, and maintainability in growing applications, however, a weakness is that for extremely complex role and permission hierarchies, you may need additional abstractions or combine it with gems such as Rolify.
Alternatives include CanCanCan for role-based authorisation and Action Policy, a newer, actively maintained gem with similar goals but more advanced features.