I think you'd probably include Rails/ActiveRecord in the big old monolithic framework category. So...yeah? I occasionally dip a toe outside to other framework

I think you'd probably include Rails/ActiveRecord in the big old monolithic framework category. So...yeah? I occasionally dip a toe outside to other frameworks and setups and always end up having to keep trying to pull more and more pieces together that I end up getting frustrated and just using Rails. I imagine that everyone's experience is vastly different given the scopes and problems that you're trying to address. I write a lot of little one-off business productivity apps, SAAS backends, etc. YMMV.