Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Active Admin VS Forestry.io

Compare Active Admin VS Forestry.io and see what are their differences

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Active Admin logo Active Admin

The administration framework for business critical Ruby on Rails applications.

Forestry.io logo Forestry.io

A simple CMS for Jekyll and Hugo sites.
  • Active Admin Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-30
  • Forestry.io Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-08

Active Admin features and specs

  • Rapid Development
    Active Admin allows for rapid development of back-end administration dashboards without having to code everything from scratch. It provides a default set of controllers, routes, and views that can be easily customized.
  • Rails Integration
    Built specifically for Ruby on Rails applications, Active Admin leverages Rails conventions and integrates seamlessly with its ecosystem, enabling a familiar and efficient development experience for Rails developers.
  • Rich Features
    Active Admin comes with a wide range of features like authentication, authorization, filtering, searching, and custom actions which can be customized to fit business requirements.
  • Community and Documentation
    Active Admin has a strong community and well-maintained documentation which provides support and resources for developers. The community contributes by sharing plugins and solutions to common problems.

Possible disadvantages of Active Admin

  • Customization Complexity
    Once you move beyond basic customizations, making extensive changes to the default behavior or appearance can be complex and require a deeper understanding of both Active Admin and Rails.
  • Performance
    Due to the abstraction and additional layers provided by Active Admin, it might not be the best choice for high-performance applications, especially when dealing with large datasets.
  • Dependency on Rails
    Active Admin is tightly coupled with Rails, which means it cannot be used for non-Rails applications, limiting its use for projects not based on this framework.
  • Version Compatibility
    As both Rails and Active Admin evolve, there might be compatibility issues between different versions, which could require upgrades or modifications in your existing codebase.

Forestry.io features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Forestry.io offers an intuitive interface that is easy to navigate, making it accessible for both technical and non-technical users.
  • Git Integration
    Seamless integration with Git repositories allows for version control and collaboration, ensuring content consistency and traceability.
  • Static Site Generator Compatibility
    Supports a variety of static site generators such as Jekyll, Hugo, and Gatsby, providing flexibility in choosing the best framework for your needs.
  • Real-Time Preview
    Provides real-time previews of content changes, enabling users to see how updates will look before they are published.
  • Markdown Support
    Offers robust support for Markdown, making it easier to format and manage content.
  • Customizable
    Highly customizable, allowing users to define content models, fields, and custom workflows to fit their specific needs.
  • Collaborative Editing
    Supports collaborative editing, enabling multiple users to work on the same content simultaneously.

Possible disadvantages of Forestry.io

  • Learning Curve for Non-Technical Users
    While the interface is user-friendly, non-technical users might initially struggle with concepts like Git and static site generators.
  • Dependency on External Tools
    Relies heavily on Git and static site generators, meaning you need to have these set up and integrated properly for optimal use.
  • Performance Issues
    Some users have reported performance issues, particularly with larger repositories or more complex site setups.
  • Limited Built-In Hosting
    Forestry.io focuses on content management and does not provide its own hosting solution, so you'll need a separate provider for deploying your site.
  • Pricing
    Might be considered expensive for smaller projects or individual users, especially when compared to other content management systems.
  • Support and Documentation
    While generally good, some users have found the available support and documentation lacking in certain areas, making it harder to troubleshoot issues.
  • Security
    As with any third-party service, there are inherent security risks. Ensuring the security of your Git repositories and sensitive data requires additional vigilance.

Analysis of Forestry.io

Overall verdict

  • Forestry.io is a solid choice for developers and content teams looking for a Git-based CMS that facilitates static site generation workflows. It streamlines the process of managing and pushing updates to static sites, particularly for those who appreciate working within a robust and flexible environment.

Why this product is good

  • Forestry.io is a content management system (CMS) that's particularly beneficial for static site generators, such as Jekyll, Hugo, and Gatsby. It provides a user-friendly interface, allowing developers and content creators to manage site content through an intuitive dashboard. The platform supports seamless integration with Git-based workflows, enabling version control, collaboration, and automated deployments. Moreover, it offers features like custom previews, front matter editing, and media management, making it easy to handle various content types.

Recommended for

  • Developers using static site generators
  • Content teams seeking a Git-based CMS workflow
  • Teams requiring easy set up and integration with popular static site tools
  • Those who prefer a friendly interface for non-technical users while maintaining a powerful backend.

Active Admin videos

Harry Potter and the Active Admin

Forestry.io videos

No Forestry.io videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Active Admin and Forestry.io)
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
CMS
0 0%
100% 100
Data Dashboard
100 100%
0% 0
Blogging
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Active Admin and Forestry.io

Active Admin Reviews

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Forestry.io Reviews

Best Headless CMS for 2020
Forestry.io is a Git-backed CMS for websites and web products built using static site generators. Forestry bridges the gap between developers and their teams, by making development fun and easy while providing powerful content management for their teams. Visit site here
Source: dev.to

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Forestry.io should be more popular than Active Admin. It has been mentiond 36 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Active Admin mentions (12)

  • Goravel: A Go framework inspired by Laravel
    Same reason IDEs โ€” when you really know them โ€” allow for quicker development compared to using primitive text editors with a bunch of third-party plugins duck-taped together. When you understand the framework, everything is written to the same standard, behaves in similar ways, and is where you expect it to be. Adding things like background job processing requires changing one line of config. Also, one... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Use Rails
    Rails is absolutely fantastic for projects below 10,000 lines with 1 or 2 contributors, especially if you want a classic forms-based UI. And you can get a huge amount done under those constraints in Rails. But as of couple of years ago, Rails came with a number of drawbacks: 1. There was no really viable system of static typing that a significant number of people were enthusiastic about. See... - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Ask HN: Why aren't Django Admin style dashboards popular in other frameworks?
    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... - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
  • View code coverage (active_admin and orther .arb file)
    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). Source: almost 4 years ago
  • Show HN: Build Ruby on Rails apps 10x faster โ€“ Avo
    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/? - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago
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Forestry.io mentions (36)

  • WordPress vs Hugo: Which Should You Self-Host?
    Not easily without additional tooling. Hugo has no admin panel โ€” content is Markdown files in a Git repository. You can add a headless CMS like Decap CMS, Tina, or Forestry to provide a web-based editor backed by Git. This adds complexity but makes Hugo accessible to non-developers. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Show HN: Self-hosted CMS on Cloudflare for podcast/blog/images/videos/docs/URLs
    Forestry has been on my radar for a long time but never had a need to use it https://forestry.io/ The big draw for me is it's just Hugo/Gatsby/Jekyll underneath, and the output files can be delivered anywhere that will host static files (CloudFlare pages does this really well, as does Netlify). - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • How would you build a website for someone who would like to update it often?
    I've done this before using Forestry.io, though I'm sure there's other similar solutions. Source: almost 4 years ago
  • free-for.dev
    Forestry.io โ€” Headless CMS. Give your editors the power of Git. Create and edit Markdown-based content with ease. Comes with three free sites that includes 3 editors, Instant Previews. Integrates with blogs hosted on Netlify/GitHubpages/ elsewhere. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago
  • Easier way to publish changes for hugo static blog?
    (Sorry. Bit late to the party) If you have github and don't mind external services (for content management) you could look at this via https://forestry.io. Source: almost 4 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Active Admin and Forestry.io, you can also consider the following products

RailsAdmin - A Rails engine that provides an easy-to-use interface for managing your data

VuePress - A static site generator by Vue.js ๐Ÿ› ๏ธ

Slick - A jquery plugin for creating slideshows and carousels into your webpage.

Publii - Open Source CMS for Static Websites

Sequel Pro - MySQL database management for Mac OS X

Sanity.io - Sanity.io a platform for structured content that comes with an open-source editor that you can customize with React.js.