Frequently asked questions

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Frequently Asked Questions

For technical FAQ please check out the documentation.

Can’t find the answer you’re looking for? Get in touch with us. Adrian, the author, responds to every email.

Commercial FAQ Upgrade FAQ

Commercial FAQ

Can I sign up for Avo 4 now?: Yes. Sign-ups are open publicly. Anyone can start a trial to start using Avo 4 today.
Can I build a site for a client and transfer the license to them later?: Absolutely. It's a common situation and we believe that website owners should also own their Avo license. If you're planning to get an yearly subscription, then we recommend your customer to purchase it.
Is this a Ruby on Rails app or a package?: Avo is packaged as a Ruby gem which you can install into your own Rails app. This makes for a better update experience where you don't have merge conflicts between your app and the underlying updates.
How many licenses do I need across environments and URLs?: The Community version is free to use in as many apps as you want. The Pro and Advanced licenses cover one production app each — you don't need extra licenses for staging, preview, or testing URLs of the same app, only separate, customer-facing apps need their own. Read the full details or book a call for more advanced licensing needs.
Do you offer a perpetual fallback license?: We offered one for Avo 3 — if you stopped renewing, you could keep the version you were on without further updates. We no longer offer it for Avo 4 and newer; using Avo requires an active subscription. Read the full details.
Why do you check the license at runtime?: Our only "per-seat" pricing is per app or URL, so we check at runtime which URL Avo runs on to keep the license valid. The check runs on the first request and every six hours, with a 5 second timeout. Read the full details.
Can I change the URLs of my license after I've purchased it?: Yes. You can change the URLs of your license at any time. The URLs must belong to the same app. The removed URLs should not use Avo anymore.
Can Avo be used in existing applications?: Yes! It's designed to be easily added in new apps and existing ones.
What kind of support do you offer?: Avo Pro and Avo Advanced come with Community support. You have free access to our Slack/Discord server where the community can share feedback and offer support.

We offer a few flavours of paid support as well.
What is your refund policy?: We'd rather you be sure before you pay than ask for a refund after. That's why we let you start a free trial first, so you can run Avo 4 in your own app and make sure it's a fit. If you still have questions, book a call with us before purchasing and we'll be happy to help.
How is the pricing structured?: We moved away from two rigid tiers. Every feature is an add-on you can pick on its own — no two apps need the same set, and some features matter more to you than others. We also grouped related add-ons into bundles at a discount versus buying them separately. Most teams start with the essentials bundle and add from there. If you want the full package, the "Everything" bundle includes every feature.
Why is everything a subscription now?: Because each feature takes ongoing work to build, maintain, secure, and improve. We do the work upfront and you pay in installments — like every other SaaS product.
Why should I pay monthly for a single feature like Global Search?: Same reasoning. It's not a one-time deliverable — it's continuously maintained, kept secure, and improved over time.
But it's just code, not a hosted service. Why subscribe?: It's more than code. It's the thinking, architecting, iterating through bad decisions, collecting feedback, maintenance, and security audits behind it. And because it lives where your app lives, you get to take control — override partials, CSS, JS, and Ruby business logic in ways you simply can't with a cloud product.
Do you have a volume license plan?: Yes we do. Please book a call and I will get back to you really soon.
What happened to the perpetual / fallback license?: We removed it. When your subscription ends, you stop using the product — just like Basecamp, Gmail, or any other SaaS.
Why do I still need Avo in the LLM age?: LLMs can scaffold a first pass — that's real. The question is what happens after: edge cases, security hardening, and the years of maintenance. That's the cost Avo absorbs.

Even when an LLM writes the first version, you still own the thinking, the edge cases, and keeping it current as Rails and Avo evolve. With Avo you offload that initial design work and the ongoing upkeep.

Every Avo feature is built for many apps, not one happy path — exercised across real production workloads, so you get robustness a one-off internal build usually skips.

You get the three T's: ship in an afternoon instead of a sprint (time), rely on human-reviewed code used across many teams (trust), and UI that behaves like a considered product, not a stitched-together internal tool (taste).

Upgrade FAQ

Is Avo 4 a stable release yet?: Yes! About 50 teams have been testing it across many different configurations, and only a handful of issues surfaced. Avo is now stable and ready for production use.
How do I upgrade from Avo 3?: Go on your project page, click "Try Avo 4" and follow the instructions.
What happened to the Avo 4 enrollment / beta program?: Enrollment is now closed. Accounts that were enrolled can keep using Avo 4 on that enrollment until August 1st, 2026, but will then need to purchase a subscription to continue.
Are the docs updated for Avo 4?: Yes. The docs now default to Avo 4, and search is scoped per version — search inside the Avo 4 section and you'll only get Avo 4 results (same for Avo 2 and 3).
Do I have to move to Avo 4 right away?: No. Keep using Avo 3 and jump to 4 whenever you're ready.
Will Avo 3 still be supported?: Yes. We plan to support Avo 3 for a long time with security updates and critical bugfixes. As long as you keep an active subscription, you get access to updates.
What breaks when going from Avo 3 to Avo 4?: There are some DSL changes, which are breaking changes. We only touched the APIs that genuinely needed improving. They're all documented in the upgrade guide.
Does Avo 4 support dark mode?: Yes, Avo 4 has a full redesign with a modern look, color scheme support (light and dark modes), and neutral and accent color customization. The UI stack is Tailwind CSS 4, with CSS variables mapping colors, spacing, and layout. A skilled front-end dev — or an LLM — can reshape it into whatever they want.
Did mobile get attention?: Yes. We reworked many screens and variations so everything is tighter on smaller screens.
Is Avo 4 Accessible (WCAG compliant)?: Accessibility (a11y) was a goal from the start, since many of our customers work under strict regulations. We're committing to WCAG 2.2 going forward.
What keyboard shortcuts are available?: Avo 4 is almost VIM-mode now. A few examples:

Shift + T — focus the table/grid, then browse with arrow keys

J / K — navigate records without focusing

Return — visit a record · E — edit · D — delete · B — back

A — open the Actions dropdown (then arrow-navigate)

Command + Return — save

Shift + N / Shift + A / Shift + M — cycle neutral colors / accent color / color scheme

Hit Shift + ? to see all the shortcuts.
What other features ship with Avo 4?: Kanban boards, custom forms, an HTTP resource, automatic JSON API endpoints, notifications, reactive fields, collaboration chat, improved global and resource search, and a redesigned summarizable feature that works under associations, with filters applied, and has its own dedicated page. Plus hundreds of smaller improvements across Dashboards, Dynamic Filters, Nested Forms, Menu, and Custom controls.
What Ruby on Rails versions do you support?: Avo 4 requires Ruby 3.0 or greater and Rails 6.1 or greater.