Some things that make it different:

- 100% ORM neutral - No new DSL to learn; just plain Ruby methods - Authorization logic goes in authorizer classes, so any inheritance pattern you want is fine - Helps you organize your logic, but that logic can be anything you can write in Ruby: check permissions in a database, or how many points a user has (like StackOverflow), or a weather report from London for all it cares.

Extensive tests and friendly documentation await you at the repo: http://github.com/nathanl/authority