I’m pretty excited about Grails, but am often asked for social proof. Well, by every measure,1 Groovy is the #1 JVM language after Java, and Grails is the #1 full stack web framework.2 But for some, that’s not enough. They want to know who is making it #1? Major companies. Below I’ve listed the household names. I could not get details for some companies, but a Google search will verify the claim (e.g., the Disney developer posting a Grails question to a mailing list).

Last update: August 20th, 2015

Entertainment/Gaming

  • DISH
  • Disney
  • Epic Games
  • ESPN
  • Industrial Light & Magic
  • LiveNation – TicketWeb
  • Live Gamer
  • Lucasfilm
  • MTV (and Viacom by extension)
  • NBC Universal
  • Netflix – Asgard, their Amazon EC2 cloud management app, now open sourced.
  • Riot Games (makers of League of Legends)
  • Rumble Entertainment (maker of Kings Road)
  • Time Warner Cable

Finance

  • American Express
  • Bank of the West
  • Citi
  • Credit Suisse
  • Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
  • Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
  • Fidelity Investments
  • First Data Corporation
  • Freddie Mac
  • H&R Block – mobile site (now defunct)
  • Intuit – Intuit Payment Network
  • Janus
  • JPMorgan Chase
  • MoneyGram
  • OppenheimerFunds
  • PayPal – Bill Me Later
  • UBS Wealth Management
  • Visa
  • Wells Fargo

Retail/Ecommerce

  • 7-11 (back office systems)
  • Big Lots – core site
  • Jostens
  • Macy’s
  • Nordstrom (HauteLook)
  • Panera Bread
  • Target
  • Walmart – MP3 streaming site (now defunct)

Tech

  • Apple
  • Atlassian
  • Cloudera
  • CollabNet – web interface to SVN server
  • CyberSource
  • Dell – Enstratius
  • Ericsson
  • HP – Application Information Optimizer
  • IBM – Kenexa
  • IEEE
  • Infusionsoft
  • Intel – New Devices Group
  • Nokia
  • Qualcomm
  • Rackspace
  • Rally Software
  • Seagate
  • Symantec
  • T-Mobile – internal apps
  • Toshiba- Toshiba America Business Solutions

Other

  • CARFAX
  • Commission Junction (part of Conversant)
  • Condé Nast
  • eHarmony
  • GEICO – mobile web
  • HealthPartners – Virtuwell
  • Humana
  • Infusionsoft
  • Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  • Johnson & Johnson
  • LifeLock
  • LinkedIn – Recruiter application
  • Lockheed Martin
  • Lyris
  • NetJets
  • Nissan – Leaf site
  • Orbitz
  • Pacific Gas and Electric Company
  • Precor – Preva product
  • Raytheon
  • ReachLocal
  • Reinsurance Group of America
  • Time Inc.
  • Trip Advisor
  • UnitedHealth Group
  • ValueClick
  • Virtual Tourist – core site (parent is Trip Advisor)
  • Volkswagen – UK site
  • The Washington Post
  • Wired.com
  • The XO Group (parent of The Knot / WeddingChannel.com)
  • Zynx Health (Hearst Health Group)
These are household names in some countries outside the US:
  • MACSF – (France) insurance company, internal systems
  • Mercado Libre – (South America) core site
  • National Film Board of Canada
  • Sky – (UK) TV listings, movies, and showbiz sites
  • Vodafone Music – (UK) core site
Colleges and universities:
  • Carnegie Mellon University
  • Colgate University
  • Columbia University
  • Harvard University
  • NYU (Langone Medical Center)
  • SUNY
  • UCSF
  • University of Alaska
  • University of California, Irvine
  • University of Hawaii
  • University of Minnesota
  • University of New Mexico
  • University of Oklahoma
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • University of San Francisco
  • Yale University

There are lists of many lesser known companies/apps found here and here.3 Another good place to check is Find Grails Jobs and indeed.com. I used all of them to compose this piece.

  1. Tiobe, job listings, etc. []
  2. Granted, I can only think of 3 others, Play, Roo, and Seam, but full stack is where you get the most productivity. []
  3. Apologies in advance that I’m intentionally leaving off startups and smaller companies. That’d be too much to manage and it won’t sway managers and architects, which is the point of this piece. []