ActiveAdmin VS Directus

Can you clarify what's the "tremendous value" you're getting out of the Django admin?

At Heii On-Call https://heiioncall.com/ we are using Active Admin https://activeadmin.info/ for Ruby on Rails, which seems quite similar to the Django admin. In my experience, it's mostly useful as a fairly basic read-only view of what's in the database. In Rails, it's so easy to whip together a custom view that we tend to do that, and the Active Admin is nice to have but I wouldn't say "tremendous value".

Github Link : https://github.com/activeadmin/activeadmin

for those who know [https://activeadmin.info/](https://activeadmin.info/) it uses a file format [https://github.com/activeadmin/arbre](https://github.com/activeadmin/arbre)

Very neat! My first thought was that this was a competitor to https://bullettrain.co/.

Looking into it a bit more, it seems more aimed at building admin panels than whole apps. I guess it competes against tools like https://activeadmin.info/?

We briefly considered migrating to a full-grown Rails admin interface, such as ActiveAdmin, RailsAdmin, Administrate or Avo. We especially liked Avo which is built on a very modern stack similar to ours (Tailwind + Hotwire + ViewComponents). In the end, we didn’t go this route as we found some of the options a bit too restrictive (even though Avo is very flexible) and we did not feel like trying to amend it to our needs. For example, Avo renders forms in a 1-field-per-row layout while we wanted something more similar to the Tailwind UI Stacked form layout. Nevertheless, we found a great deal of inspiration in the Avo code and its design principles.

I second Rails. It's incredibly polished and has really good gems to speed up dev. ActiveAdmin is a great gem if you need to quickly make an admin dashboard. It was useful when I had a small consultancy.

https://activeadmin.info/

See an example: https://activeadmin.info It provides a fast way to create back office functionality.

[1] https://activeadmin.info/

I can't speak much about Rails, as I've only played with it. But I've used a lot Django in the past.

Regarding the Django admin (in rails you have ActiveAdmin[1]) think if it just as a glorified database explorer. It is an internal tool for developers, product managers and maybe for your support team. It is in no way thought to be used by end users. Every attempt I've seen to use it as such was a catastrophic failure.

With Django, if you know plain HTML and CSS, with the tools I've mentioned in the comment you're responding to, you can build almost anything... For example, let's say you need a highly interactive client side table.... you can always just attach a Vue or a React component for it by using Unpoly compilers [2].

I'd say this stack is less useful the more your app needs to work fully offline... but if you don't have that constraint... I cannot think of anything that can't be built faster and safer.

[1] https://activeadmin.info/

[2] https://unpoly.com/up.compiler

As of April 2024, Directus' GitHub repository has accumulated 25.2k stars and 3.5k forks, showcasing its active community. The project has secured $8+ million in funding, further fueling its growth and development.

I don't know, it's something I've wanted many times.

Recently I discovered https://directus.io/ which comes pretty close and it's open source.

Directus: The Shape-Shifting Maverick

The Backend to Build Anything or Everything | Directus

today I discovered https://directus.io/

You could try https://www.airtable.com/ (check the prices) or https://directus.io/ (check the prices) or hire someone :)

I using Directus CMS on several projects with pretty complicated flows, api extensions etc. probably there will be some work if you move. I liked Directus is because it's standard SQL I can always move my DB and documents to another solution. I don't use their hosted solution but they have an unlimited offering for $100 / month.

Have you looked at Directus? I’m not sure exactly what your needs are (sorry if I’ve misunderstood). I used it for my most recent project as the backend for data entry/queries/administration. It supports MySQL, but admins don’t need to know anything about SQL to do complex queries/filters/CSV exports from the Directus UI.

It depends on your skillsets, but I'd highly recommend https://directus.io/ especially if you need "slickness" to raise money otherwise try a pyhat stack if you hate javascript.