Count Objects in a Memory Efficient Way in Rails

Counting is key, but memory is scarce and ruby is slow, we have heard it all :) Then simply do not count objects, count their IDs in a list instead. This can be done by calling .pluck(), which will return an array with the values of an attribute.

@user_count = User.all.pluck(:id).count
# return an array with all IDs

Yet, there is more to that. You can call .size to gain a little more speed, due to a slightly different implementation of size and count in ruby.

# size is best with arrays
@users_count = User.all.pluck(:id).size

If you need the objects return by a query. Make sure to run your element query first, then use size to not make the database go through the rows again - using count will hit the database. postgresqltutorial.com: COUNT function

@active_users = User.where(active: true)
@user_count = @active_users.size

Once your platform is growing big, you could either setup a rake task that updates a reference table frequently and/or make use of rails’ built-in counter_cache