ActiveAdmin
Better knownThe long-standing Rails admin framework, mounted at /admin
No ratings yet# Gemfile
gem "activeadmin"ActiveAdmin vs Avo
Both replace Retool and Forest Admin. ActiveAdmin is the better-known of the two (9,600 stars), while Avo covers a narrower slice of the same job.
What ActiveAdmin does
ActiveAdmin has been the default answer to "we need an admin" in Rails for over a decade, and it is still maintained. A DSL for registering resources Filters, scopes, batch actions and CSV export Custom pages and dashboard sections Authorization adapters for CanCan and Pundit The DSL is powerful and opinionated. Deviating from it costs more than it does in Administrate, where you are editing ordinary generated views.
Read the full ActiveAdmin listing →
Why you might pick it
- It has substantially more adoption — 9,600 stars against 2,400.
- Its licence is MIT, which may matter more than the feature list.
What Avo does
Avo builds an admin panel from resource definitions, and goes past CRUD with custom actions, filters and dashboard cards. Resource classes describing fields, filters and actions Custom actions that run Ruby against selected records Dashboards with metric and chart cards Authorization through Pundit policies Mounts at /avo by default. The community edition is MIT. Several features are in the paid tiers. Check before you plan around one.
Why you might pick it
- Members here rate it higher, at 5.0 against 0.0.
- Its licence is Community edition MIT; advanced features commercial, which may matter more than the feature list.
Side by side
Rows where the two differ are marked.
| ActiveAdmin | Avo | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Admin and internal tools | Admin and internal tools |
| Replaces | Forest Admin, Retool | Forest Admin, Retool |
| License (differs) | MIT | Community edition MIT; advanced features commercial |
| GitHub stars (differs) | 9600 | 2400 |
| Gem (differs) | activeadmin | avo |
| Mounts at (differs) | /admin | /avo |
| Member rating (differs) | — | 5.0 |
What each one gets off your invoice
Both replace
Only ActiveAdmin
Nothing unique here.
Only Avo
Nothing unique here.
Questions
- What is the difference between ActiveAdmin and Avo?
- Both replace Retool and Forest Admin. ActiveAdmin is the better-known of the two (9,600 stars), while Avo covers a narrower slice of the same job.
- Can I mount both ActiveAdmin and Avo in the same Rails app?
- Technically yes — engines mount at different paths — but they overlap, so running both usually means two sets of tables doing one job. Pick one.
- Do ActiveAdmin and Avo replace the same SaaS product?
- Both are listed as replacements for Retool and Forest Admin.