Is it important to have the same version of Rails on host and local server?

Question

Ruby on Rails

I'm going to develop a web application on Rails, but my hosting only supports Ruby 1.9.3 p429, Gem 1.8.23, Rails 3.2.13, can I use a different version, newer Ruby, Gem and Rails for local development.
What are the nuances if the versions on the hosting and the local server do not match?

Answer 1

This is suicide. First of all - use some kind of shared hosting with pre-installed packages for development on rails. You run into different restrictions too quickly. Rails is not for that. Take the VPS, at least the simplest one, for 3-5 bucks. If you are just developing for now - use the free plans https://www.heroku.com/ https://www.openshift.com/ aws.amazon.com/free
Major version (first digit) - usually means incompatible API. In rails, you will have completely different code in many places in version 3 and 4.
Usually it's even better that the minor versions of the interpreters match.