Rails 3 is a simpler Rails that works the way I like it. But with the added advantage of massive community support.

Sinatra (and Ramaze) also have the advantage of having been thoroughly tested and have a lot of eyeballs on them. Using Padrino (and perhaps Monk) creates the risk of (a) encountering framework boilerplate code that is buggy and (b) not having enough help to fix those problems because of insufficient resources on the part of the creators or insufficient community support.

That said, the documentation is impressive and attractive. The only suggestion I would make is the reduce the size of the downloadable screencast - no need for a 210MB video file for 12 minutes of video. Also, the version on Vimeo is unwatchable because it's not HD - it's difficult to read the source code on screen.

No idea why anyone would mod this comment down. For what it's worth, I agree completely.

I agree Vimeo version was unwatchable. We have uploaded a better version to blip.tv here: http://blip.tv/file/3432970/ and updated our blog tutorial to reflect this: http://www.padrinorb.com/guides/blog-tutorial . Also thanks for your feedback.

But is it as fast?

Padrino allows you to also cherry-pick any 'section' as well. check out the doc here http://www.padrinorb.com/guides/standalone-usage-in-sinatra