Introduction

Amber is a web development framework written in the Crystal programming language. The framework implements the server-side MVC pattern using the object-oriented paradigm. Many of Amber's components and concepts will be familiar for developers with experience with other web frameworks like Phoenix, Ruby on Rails or Python's Django.

Amber aims to deliver developer happiness, productivity, and bare metal performance. The Crystal language is heavily inspired by Ruby, delivering familiarity, productivity, and a low learning curve for experienced Ruby developers. Meanwhile, Crystal also has some modern features like macros, first class concurrency, union types, C bindings, and a built in dependency manager. Amber takes advantage of all these features providing you an opinionated structure to develop a web application.

Amber offers a variety of familiar tools such as generators, database management, CLI, deployment tools, docker support, encrypted secrets, websockets, and more for fast prototyping and developing enterprise-grade web applications. If you come from a Ruby on Rails background you will feel right at home, but, be aware Amber is not Rails! Amber is type-safe, compiled, and embraces the best features from many different frameworks for example pipes for routing which is more similar to the Phoenix framework.

The aim of this introductory guide is to present a high-level overview of Amber Framework and the layers underneath that support it.

Getting Help

If you’re stuck, there are a number of places you can get help.

• Gitter for quick questions.
• Stack Overflow for questions about the Crystal Language and Amber Framework.
• Github for getting acquainted with source code, current issues and progress.
• Online Guides for getting down and dirty working with Amber.
• Twitter to see latest news and announcements about Amber Framework.

Contributing

Contributing to Amber can be a rewarding way to learn, teach, and build experience in just about any skill you can imagine. You don’t have to become a lifelong contributor to enjoy participating in Amber.

Amber is a community effort and we want You to be part of ours Join Amber Community!

First Steps

Learning a new framework can be intimidating and exciting at the same time. To help you along, we have created a cookbook packed with examples and recipes to get the common tasks completed.

If you are new, you should start off with the guides.

If you want a step by step tutorial try the quick start.

Happy developing!