Run Ruby on Android — On-Device, No Setup

Ruby is a joy to write and, until now, awkward to run on a phone. PocketCode fixes that by bundling a real Ruby interpreter (a WebAssembly runtime) inside the app and running your .rb files on the device — with nothing to install.

Real Ruby, running locally

This is a genuine Ruby interpreter (Ruby 3.2), not a lookalike. Open a .rb file, tap Run, and Ruby executes on your device:

• The expressive core you actually use — blocks, iterators, puts, string methods, ranges, hashes, symbols — behaves as Ruby should.
• Output and errors stream into a proper console.
• It runs on the device and nothing leaves it. (The app needs a connection to sign in; opening the app with a session already started works offline.)

What it's great for

• Learning and practicing Ruby — follow a tutorial, drill exercises, test an idea on the spot.
• Scripting — quick text processing, data munging, small automations.
• Prototyping logic — sketch a method or a small class and run it immediately.

Around it you get the editor's syntax highlighting and code navigation (see the code editor guide), plus a programming symbol bar so Ruby's punctuation isn't a fight with the phone keyboard. Ruby has no language server (Solargraph needs a Ruby runtime that PocketCode doesn't include) and no language-specific formatter, only the generic whitespace cleanup.

The honest limits

• Standard-library Ruby, run locally. It's for running your own scripts, not a gem-install workflow — think Ruby without a package round-trip.
• No network by default. Ruby runs as a WebAssembly module: it can't open network connections unless you turn on Allow network in WASM engines in Run with arguments.
• Interpreter speed on a phone. Great for scripts and exercises; heavy compute will trail a desktop.
• Not a Rails server. It runs the language for scripting and learning, not a full web-app stack.

Within those lines, it's real Ruby, in your pocket.

One of many

Ruby is one of the languages bundled inside the app from first launch — alongside Python, JavaScript, C, PHP, TypeScript, Java and Kotlin — with Lua, Go and Rhai as optional packs. See the full lineup.

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Your phone runs real Ruby — private and instant.

PocketCode is available on Google Play. Get PocketCode to run it on your own device.