> Are each of these dependencies really small on average? Or is there some big cascade of dependencies? Or is there a particular framework that's to blame? All

> Are each of these dependencies really small on average? Or is there some big cascade of dependencies? Or is there a particular framework that's to blame? All of that, really. For better or worse, scores of gems have dependencies. Rails and a few popular others add large dependencies that cascade to other dependencies at that — some large, some not. It's extremely rare to run into quality gems with very few if any dependencies. (Sequel comes to mind, and that's just about the only 1st-class gem I can think of in pure Ruby.)