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Compare Avo Alternatives

Looking for a Ruby on Rails admin panel framework? See how Avo compares to other alternatives when it comes to features, ease of customization and more.

Compare Avo Alternatives

If you're short on time, here's a quick comparison that can help you make a better decision:

Feature

Active Admin

Rails Admin

Administrate

Motor Admin

Trestle

Generate an admin panel from your app's resources

Customize your admin panel using a DSL

You own the data, no third party hosting

Good UI/UX

Mobile ready

Advanced search and filtering features

Ease of customization

Dashboards, charts, widgets and data visualization

Great documentation

No-code/low-code

Trusted by a growing group of Rails brands

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Build your next awesome Rails app using Avo

Find out how you can build 10x faster using Avo and why it's being used by more than 350+ production applications as of today.

Every tool and feature you need to build fast with Rails

Avo is packed with features that make your life easier. It will feel like having a new, an awesome, developer in your team.

A beautiful UI

Create a beautiful CRUD UI in no time and without having to hire a designer.

Advanced search

Search and filter one or more resources to find what you need in no time

Field abundance

Avo comes with 30+ type of fields to build an admin panel suited to your needs

Data visualization

Customize your dashboards with charts, widgets and metrics

Mobile ready

Run your business on the go: Avo is mobile ready and can be used on any device.

Custom actions

Execute actions on your resources with little configuration

Translatable UI

Internationalize your application easily with Avo

Managed authorization

Use Pundit policies to manage the access to your resources

We are migrating from ActiveAdmin to Avo and both in terms of Developer experience and User experience, it is a game changer!

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Adrien Poly CTO

Still having doubts?

Here is a list of questions and answers that might help you with your Rails admin panel journey

I don't have time, which one should I pick?

We're biased, but we think Avo is the best admin panel framework for Rails. That doesn't mean that the other alternatives are bad, it just means that Avo picked up where other admin frameworks left and improved on their shortcomings.

Features like

Why should I use an admin panel framework for my Rails application?

Deciding wether to use an admin framework like Avo or any of its alternatives depends on the amount of time you want to put up-front to build your admin panel. If you want to be up and running in a few hours you should use Avo or the alternative you like the best. If you are willing to put in the hours to build your own admin panel, you can build it from scratch or use custom scaffolding.

In the end, there's no right or wrong answer. It all depends on your project, your experience and your goals. If you've never used a Rails admin panel you can take Avo for a test ride and decide if it's an adequate solution for you.

Should I go the traditional route (Rails Admin, Active Admin) or pick one of the newer solutions like Avo?

As with anything, it depends. Active Admin and Rails Admin are proven solutions that have been around for a while. This has it's advantages but it also presents some disadvantages like older dependencies, lack of active and vigorous development, unmaintained third party plugins, a user experience that could be better and some issues like lack of udpated documentation or an active community.

On the other hand, Avo is a modern solution that has been around for less than 4 years and is still currently receiving love from its developers and awesome community. Even though Avo is not as popular yet as Rails Admin or Active Admin, it's surely on the way to becoming a widely adopted solution because it embraces modern Rails development and its current ways.

Can I customize the look and feel of my Rails admin panel?

Customization is one of the blocking issues for people when it comes to using an admin panel gem for Rails.

It's certainly not impossible tu customize your admin panel when you choose any admin alternative for Rails. However, it can insume a lot of time and effort and make you feel like you're fighting against the framework instead of focusing on your project.

Actually, the same can be said about every admin solution out there: there's a tradeoff between the initial development speed and feature richness and the fact that customizing any admin panel framework is not free: it will certainly cost you more than just coding the views by yourself.

Having said this, Avo is built with the idea that customization should not be a huge blocker and that's why we've put a lot of effort into making Avo as customizable as possible without the usual headaches presented by our antecessors.

I might try Avo, but I don't like the fact that it's not free

Your concern is understandable. There are free admin panel solutions out there and they're the majority in the Rails world. But, Avo having paid tiers doesn't mean you can't use it for free to start building your next project.

Actually, about 70% of every feature Avo has is available in the free plan. This means that you can enjoy Avo's progress even if you're not a paying customer.

Plus, Avo being a paid solution means that we can really focus on building Avo full-time and improve it with customer and user feedback so it gets better for everyone, even for those that don't plan to pay for their admin framework.

Avo is built by an admin of two and we're as focused as you can get to make the best Rails admin panel even better. So, the takeaway is: even if you're not planning on using our paid plans, you benefit from them because new features end up on the free plan constantly.

Other comparisons

Here are some other comparisons that might help you choosing your next Rails admin panel framework

Rails Admin vs Active Admin

Both of these options are the most popular and enduring admin frameworks for Rails. Find how they compare between each other and which one is the right pick for you based on your preferences.

Active Admin vs Administrate

Active Admin and Administrate have very different approaches to building an admin framework. Learn about them in this article and find out which option might me a better fit for you and your next Rails application.

Rails Admin vs Administrate

Rails Admin is one of the most popular admin gems for Rails applications while Administrate is also popular but has a different approach to building admin panels and internal tools. Find out which one is the right choice for you