Flipper Feature Flags: Ruby Feature Toggles

Flipper is a popular feature flag management library for Ruby applications that enables controlled feature rollouts, A/B testing, and gradual deployments.

Key Features

1. Simple API

# Basic feature check
if Flipper.enabled?(:new_checkout)
  # New checkout flow
else
  # Legacy checkout flow
end

2. Multiple Gate Types

3. Configuration Examples

# Enable for all users
Flipper.enable(:feature_name)

# Enable for percentage of users
Flipper[:feature_name].enable_percentage_of_actors(10)

# Enable for specific user
Flipper[:feature_name].enable_actor(current_user)

# Enable for user group
Flipper[:feature_name].enable_group(:admins)

# Disable feature
Flipper.disable(:feature_name)

Setup

# Gemfile
gem 'flipper'
gem 'flipper-active_record'  # or other adapter

# config/initializers/flipper.rb
Flipper.configure do |config|
  config.default { Flipper::Adapters::ActiveRecord.new }
end

Common Use Cases

• Gradual Rollouts: Release features to 5% → 25% → 50% → 100%
• A/B Testing: Compare feature variants
• Kill Switches: Quickly disable problematic features
• User Segments: Beta features for specific groups
• Canary Deployments: Test with subset before full release

Benefits

✅ Zero-downtime deployments
✅ Easy rollback
✅ Data-driven decisions
✅ Reduced risk
✅ Improved developer workflow

Flipper integrates seamlessly with Rails and provides both UI dashboards and programmatic control for managing feature flags.