There are many nice things about Rails. If I had to pick, the secret sauce is ActiveRecord. ActiveRecord avoids 90% of the SQL that is usually required when wri

There are many nice things about Rails. If I had to pick, the secret sauce is ActiveRecord. ActiveRecord avoids 90% of the SQL that is usually required when writing an app. ActiveRecord avoids this in such a way, using metaprogramming and conventions, that the time saved writing SQL is really time saved, not merely exchanged for time writing an extensive ORM mapping layer. The boost this gives can be amazing when compared to some other frameworks. I can't speak for Django, though.