Pros and cons of off-the-shelf solutions for creating a control panel

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on /r/reactjs

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  • Refine

    A React Framework for building internal tools, admin panels, dashboards & B2B apps with unmatched flexibility.

  • - We want a solution that creates CRUD (create, read, update, delete) quickly and requires minimal effort. - We want to be able to create some sort of complex interface if the task requires it. - We make cool, beautiful projects, so we want a visually pleasing solution. - We want the solution to be independent of the language on the back-end, because, for example, we started with PHP, Laravel, but over time node.js, Go appeared in the stack. In short, we want fast, beautiful and custom. We've had time to poke at various off-the-shelf solutions that we've been advised. They're good, but: - they are created specifically for some frameworks / languages like laravel, node.js - they can only generate CRUDs with a rigidly defined structure, where you can't implement or customize anything of your own. - they can't be styled Here's what we've been looking at Control Panels for Laravel: https://demo.backpackforlaravel.com/admin/dashboard Not a very pretty solution in our opinion. And the promo page has nice screenshots, not the demo "well such". https://orchid.software/en/ Not particularly functional, but neatly done https://nova.laravel.com They have a beautiful, but rigidly set strutkrua, you can not create castmon interfaces, stylize them. Just do CRUD and that's it. And it's paid https://filamentphp.com/ Analog to Nova, with essentially the same problems. For node.js: https://adminjs.co Nice promo, and the demo is way behind As standalone dashboards: https://strapi.io/ Very cool, but for other purposes. It's more of an entity builder with an interface and API https://pocketbase.io/ Similarly, it's an entity builder with an interface and API https://directus.io/ This is a backend builder. https://filamentphp.com/It is purely for php, you can't customize styles, you can't create your own interfaces. It is possible to create only tables and forms by template, and we remember that we want flexibility, independence from the language and the ability to create their own interfaces and customize them https://flatlogic.com This is also more of a backend builder. Direct competitors: https://github.com/refinedev/refine https://marmelab.com/react-admin/is probably the best solution that is currently on the market, they have been developing for a long time, they are our favorite. To the disadvantages we considered the following points: quite an old project, and somewhere the technology is already outdated, unsympathetic interface, old UI libraries. Huge documentation, it’s simply to create CRUD but hard to work without immersion. After all this there is only one conclusion: you need to do it yourself....

  • Strapi

    🚀 Strapi is the leading open-source headless CMS. It’s 100% JavaScript/TypeScript, fully customizable and developer-first.

  • - We want a solution that creates CRUD (create, read, update, delete) quickly and requires minimal effort. - We want to be able to create some sort of complex interface if the task requires it. - We make cool, beautiful projects, so we want a visually pleasing solution. - We want the solution to be independent of the language on the back-end, because, for example, we started with PHP, Laravel, but over time node.js, Go appeared in the stack. In short, we want fast, beautiful and custom. We've had time to poke at various off-the-shelf solutions that we've been advised. They're good, but: - they are created specifically for some frameworks / languages like laravel, node.js - they can only generate CRUDs with a rigidly defined structure, where you can't implement or customize anything of your own. - they can't be styled Here's what we've been looking at Control Panels for Laravel: https://demo.backpackforlaravel.com/admin/dashboard Not a very pretty solution in our opinion. And the promo page has nice screenshots, not the demo "well such". https://orchid.software/en/ Not particularly functional, but neatly done https://nova.laravel.com They have a beautiful, but rigidly set strutkrua, you can not create castmon interfaces, stylize them. Just do CRUD and that's it. And it's paid https://filamentphp.com/ Analog to Nova, with essentially the same problems. For node.js: https://adminjs.co Nice promo, and the demo is way behind As standalone dashboards: https://strapi.io/ Very cool, but for other purposes. It's more of an entity builder with an interface and API https://pocketbase.io/ Similarly, it's an entity builder with an interface and API https://directus.io/ This is a backend builder. https://filamentphp.com/It is purely for php, you can't customize styles, you can't create your own interfaces. It is possible to create only tables and forms by template, and we remember that we want flexibility, independence from the language and the ability to create their own interfaces and customize them https://flatlogic.com This is also more of a backend builder. Direct competitors: https://github.com/refinedev/refine https://marmelab.com/react-admin/is probably the best solution that is currently on the market, they have been developing for a long time, they are our favorite. To the disadvantages we considered the following points: quite an old project, and somewhere the technology is already outdated, unsympathetic interface, old UI libraries. Huge documentation, it’s simply to create CRUD but hard to work without immersion. After all this there is only one conclusion: you need to do it yourself....

  • SurveyJS

    Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App. With SurveyJS form UI libraries, you can build and style forms in a fully-integrated drag & drop form builder, render them in your JS app, and store form submission data in any backend, inc. PHP, ASP.NET Core, and Node.js.

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  • pocketbase

    Open Source realtime backend in 1 file

  • - We want a solution that creates CRUD (create, read, update, delete) quickly and requires minimal effort. - We want to be able to create some sort of complex interface if the task requires it. - We make cool, beautiful projects, so we want a visually pleasing solution. - We want the solution to be independent of the language on the back-end, because, for example, we started with PHP, Laravel, but over time node.js, Go appeared in the stack. In short, we want fast, beautiful and custom. We've had time to poke at various off-the-shelf solutions that we've been advised. They're good, but: - they are created specifically for some frameworks / languages like laravel, node.js - they can only generate CRUDs with a rigidly defined structure, where you can't implement or customize anything of your own. - they can't be styled Here's what we've been looking at Control Panels for Laravel: https://demo.backpackforlaravel.com/admin/dashboard Not a very pretty solution in our opinion. And the promo page has nice screenshots, not the demo "well such". https://orchid.software/en/ Not particularly functional, but neatly done https://nova.laravel.com They have a beautiful, but rigidly set strutkrua, you can not create castmon interfaces, stylize them. Just do CRUD and that's it. And it's paid https://filamentphp.com/ Analog to Nova, with essentially the same problems. For node.js: https://adminjs.co Nice promo, and the demo is way behind As standalone dashboards: https://strapi.io/ Very cool, but for other purposes. It's more of an entity builder with an interface and API https://pocketbase.io/ Similarly, it's an entity builder with an interface and API https://directus.io/ This is a backend builder. https://filamentphp.com/It is purely for php, you can't customize styles, you can't create your own interfaces. It is possible to create only tables and forms by template, and we remember that we want flexibility, independence from the language and the ability to create their own interfaces and customize them https://flatlogic.com This is also more of a backend builder. Direct competitors: https://github.com/refinedev/refine https://marmelab.com/react-admin/is probably the best solution that is currently on the market, they have been developing for a long time, they are our favorite. To the disadvantages we considered the following points: quite an old project, and somewhere the technology is already outdated, unsympathetic interface, old UI libraries. Huge documentation, it’s simply to create CRUD but hard to work without immersion. After all this there is only one conclusion: you need to do it yourself....

  • react-admin

    A frontend Framework for building data-driven applications running on top of REST/GraphQL APIs, using TypeScript, React and Material Design

  • - We want a solution that creates CRUD (create, read, update, delete) quickly and requires minimal effort. - We want to be able to create some sort of complex interface if the task requires it. - We make cool, beautiful projects, so we want a visually pleasing solution. - We want the solution to be independent of the language on the back-end, because, for example, we started with PHP, Laravel, but over time node.js, Go appeared in the stack. In short, we want fast, beautiful and custom. We've had time to poke at various off-the-shelf solutions that we've been advised. They're good, but: - they are created specifically for some frameworks / languages like laravel, node.js - they can only generate CRUDs with a rigidly defined structure, where you can't implement or customize anything of your own. - they can't be styled Here's what we've been looking at Control Panels for Laravel: https://demo.backpackforlaravel.com/admin/dashboard Not a very pretty solution in our opinion. And the promo page has nice screenshots, not the demo "well such". https://orchid.software/en/ Not particularly functional, but neatly done https://nova.laravel.com They have a beautiful, but rigidly set strutkrua, you can not create castmon interfaces, stylize them. Just do CRUD and that's it. And it's paid https://filamentphp.com/ Analog to Nova, with essentially the same problems. For node.js: https://adminjs.co Nice promo, and the demo is way behind As standalone dashboards: https://strapi.io/ Very cool, but for other purposes. It's more of an entity builder with an interface and API https://pocketbase.io/ Similarly, it's an entity builder with an interface and API https://directus.io/ This is a backend builder. https://filamentphp.com/It is purely for php, you can't customize styles, you can't create your own interfaces. It is possible to create only tables and forms by template, and we remember that we want flexibility, independence from the language and the ability to create their own interfaces and customize them https://flatlogic.com This is also more of a backend builder. Direct competitors: https://github.com/refinedev/refine https://marmelab.com/react-admin/is probably the best solution that is currently on the market, they have been developing for a long time, they are our favorite. To the disadvantages we considered the following points: quite an old project, and somewhere the technology is already outdated, unsympathetic interface, old UI libraries. Huge documentation, it’s simply to create CRUD but hard to work without immersion. After all this there is only one conclusion: you need to do it yourself....

  • filament

    A collection of beautiful full-stack components for Laravel. The perfect starting point for your next app. Using Livewire, Alpine.js and Tailwind CSS. (by filamentphp)

  • - We want a solution that creates CRUD (create, read, update, delete) quickly and requires minimal effort. - We want to be able to create some sort of complex interface if the task requires it. - We make cool, beautiful projects, so we want a visually pleasing solution. - We want the solution to be independent of the language on the back-end, because, for example, we started with PHP, Laravel, but over time node.js, Go appeared in the stack. In short, we want fast, beautiful and custom. We've had time to poke at various off-the-shelf solutions that we've been advised. They're good, but: - they are created specifically for some frameworks / languages like laravel, node.js - they can only generate CRUDs with a rigidly defined structure, where you can't implement or customize anything of your own. - they can't be styled Here's what we've been looking at Control Panels for Laravel: https://demo.backpackforlaravel.com/admin/dashboard Not a very pretty solution in our opinion. And the promo page has nice screenshots, not the demo "well such". https://orchid.software/en/ Not particularly functional, but neatly done https://nova.laravel.com They have a beautiful, but rigidly set strutkrua, you can not create castmon interfaces, stylize them. Just do CRUD and that's it. And it's paid https://filamentphp.com/ Analog to Nova, with essentially the same problems. For node.js: https://adminjs.co Nice promo, and the demo is way behind As standalone dashboards: https://strapi.io/ Very cool, but for other purposes. It's more of an entity builder with an interface and API https://pocketbase.io/ Similarly, it's an entity builder with an interface and API https://directus.io/ This is a backend builder. https://filamentphp.com/It is purely for php, you can't customize styles, you can't create your own interfaces. It is possible to create only tables and forms by template, and we remember that we want flexibility, independence from the language and the ability to create their own interfaces and customize them https://flatlogic.com This is also more of a backend builder. Direct competitors: https://github.com/refinedev/refine https://marmelab.com/react-admin/is probably the best solution that is currently on the market, they have been developing for a long time, they are our favorite. To the disadvantages we considered the following points: quite an old project, and somewhere the technology is already outdated, unsympathetic interface, old UI libraries. Huge documentation, it’s simply to create CRUD but hard to work without immersion. After all this there is only one conclusion: you need to do it yourself....

  • Directus

    The Modern Data Stack 🐰 — Directus is an instant REST+GraphQL API and intuitive no-code data collaboration app for any SQL database.

  • - We want a solution that creates CRUD (create, read, update, delete) quickly and requires minimal effort. - We want to be able to create some sort of complex interface if the task requires it. - We make cool, beautiful projects, so we want a visually pleasing solution. - We want the solution to be independent of the language on the back-end, because, for example, we started with PHP, Laravel, but over time node.js, Go appeared in the stack. In short, we want fast, beautiful and custom. We've had time to poke at various off-the-shelf solutions that we've been advised. They're good, but: - they are created specifically for some frameworks / languages like laravel, node.js - they can only generate CRUDs with a rigidly defined structure, where you can't implement or customize anything of your own. - they can't be styled Here's what we've been looking at Control Panels for Laravel: https://demo.backpackforlaravel.com/admin/dashboard Not a very pretty solution in our opinion. And the promo page has nice screenshots, not the demo "well such". https://orchid.software/en/ Not particularly functional, but neatly done https://nova.laravel.com They have a beautiful, but rigidly set strutkrua, you can not create castmon interfaces, stylize them. Just do CRUD and that's it. And it's paid https://filamentphp.com/ Analog to Nova, with essentially the same problems. For node.js: https://adminjs.co Nice promo, and the demo is way behind As standalone dashboards: https://strapi.io/ Very cool, but for other purposes. It's more of an entity builder with an interface and API https://pocketbase.io/ Similarly, it's an entity builder with an interface and API https://directus.io/ This is a backend builder. https://filamentphp.com/It is purely for php, you can't customize styles, you can't create your own interfaces. It is possible to create only tables and forms by template, and we remember that we want flexibility, independence from the language and the ability to create their own interfaces and customize them https://flatlogic.com This is also more of a backend builder. Direct competitors: https://github.com/refinedev/refine https://marmelab.com/react-admin/is probably the best solution that is currently on the market, they have been developing for a long time, they are our favorite. To the disadvantages we considered the following points: quite an old project, and somewhere the technology is already outdated, unsympathetic interface, old UI libraries. Huge documentation, it’s simply to create CRUD but hard to work without immersion. After all this there is only one conclusion: you need to do it yourself....

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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