I notice that I can have a functional website without using bundler. What exactly does bundler do?
What are features I would be missing out if I don’t use bundler?
Bundler is recommended but not required; I don’t use bundler, but I believe the role it plays is to keep all the different dependencies in sync, so it looks at the gem file and installs any needed other gems (as well as keeping the versions in sync) as specified there. This makes it simpler to run a site that has multiple dependencies - without it you would need to know any other gems that were needed and install them yourself.
If you have a simple site, and you are the only one working on it then it doesn’t do much.
If you have a complex site with lots of plugins and a theme and you do dev work with other people then bundler is probably a life saver.
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