Any insight on pros and cons of Rails + ActionCable vs. Rails + your own socket.io based node server? I've been getting by with the latter whenever the need arose.
Fewer moving parts. ActionCable is stupidly simple to get up and running.
ActionCable is super simple to setup since you can keep the same style as the rest of your Rails application. The only downside at the moment is the support/documentation: the real time messaging app, I'm working on is starting, to get more complex and it would be better to get more support. But hey, it's still in beta... so better wait if you don't want to get your hands dirty ;)