There's no doubt about it, Ruby on Rails is awesome. The guys at 37signals make great software on top of Rails to prove it. Ruby is a very easy language to learn too. So, why did I decide to use CakePHP instead? Well, there's a few reasons.

As a web designer/developer, I'm often faced with the task of rebuilding an existing site. This means I'm usually stuck using their web host, as opposed to one I recommend. That's where Rails can fail. In order for Rails to work, the web host has to support it. When I first delved into Rails, I tried to set it up on my Linux server at home (I didn't want to use the Webrick server), and that's when I got a bit frustrated. It was difficult, and I needed to develop an application like yesterday. My server was already configured for PHP, MySQL, and Apache with mod_rewrite. That's all CakePHP needs to work, and most web hosts meet these requirements. Besides, I'm already really familiar with PHP.

It's also worth mentioning that a lot of the screencasts for rails involves using scripts on the server's console. Most websites I design are on shared web servers, so shell access isn't available. There's ways around using these scripts, but still, it makes these screencasts appear too good to be true. CakePHP is just more realistic for a broader audience. Don't get me wrong, Rails is good, and Ruby is arguably an easier language than PHP, but the code is only half of the battle. We have to take everything into account.