...such as? It'd help to know what you consider to be "better alternatives" because it gives scope to what your priorities are. I've seen discussions in which people say, "Well now there's Sinatra"...which is fine, but that's more of an opinion about "Lightweight projects and systems are nicer" rather than "Sinatra is better than Rails". I used to use Rails all the time but now I do most data projects in Middleman...but that's because I prioritize static builds and front-end engineering and most importantly, simplified my data infrastructure so that it can be represented as a spreadsheet or plaintext YAML...but that's not something applicable to all projects.
One of the most valuable parts of Rails is its opinionated infrastructure...and I think that's helped it be a little more nimble from version to version.