I did use the Five Run script as well (http://railsnotes.com/38-ruby-on-rails-hosting-for-your-new-ror-super-app/ http://railsnotes.com/38-ruby-on-rails-hosting

I did use the Five Run script as well (http://railsnotes.com/38-ruby-on-rails-hosting-for-your-new-ror-super-app/ http://railsnotes.com/38-ruby-on-rails-hosting-for-your-new-...) and I kind of had the same issue later on when I needed to get things upgraded and when I needed to install additional stuff. I haven't had that issue with Moonshine yet. One of their goals with Moonshine was idempotency and from my perspective, they've really done a good job of reaching it. I've found that I haven't needed to hack around the production server much because I can do (almost) everything through moonshine. It's kinda like Rails in that a lot of things seem to happen automagically but you can easily look at the source code and understand how it works. The recipe files let you see exactly where things go and change it to suite your needs. Give it a shot. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.