It’s a stream, kind of I was reading the ActiveAdmin docs, as one does, when I read that ActiveAdmin, by default, streams CSV data when you request it from your browser, rather than sending it all in one chunk. This means that the Rails server can start sending the CSV data to the client while the file is still being generated. This can make the response much faster. (True fact, I was reading it for my mega-hot best seller Take My Money: Accepting Payments on The Web. What do CSVs have to ...