Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Budibase VS Active Admin

Compare Budibase VS Active Admin and see what are their differences

Budibase logo Budibase

What Wordpress is to websites, Budibase is to web apps. Budibase is a free and open source web app builder for creating, launching and growing web applications. Budibase eliminates repetition and dramatically reduces development time. Check it out.

Active Admin logo Active Admin

The administration framework for business critical Ruby on Rails applications.
  • Budibase Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-29

Open source, and designed for rapid development, Budibase is the new and better way to build, host and manage applications.

Benefits: Reduce development times by up to 70% No more repetitive coding Flexibility to choose your own UI Secure hosting A platform to manage your app A platform for managing and growing your customer base A reporting interface for quick analysis A marketplace UI builder

When you need to build, launch and grow your web application, and escape the 9-5, Budibase has you covered.

Join thousands of makers, startups and developers, like yourself, and signup for early access.

https://www.budibase.com/

  • Active Admin Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-30

Budibase features and specs

  • Low-Code Development
    Budibase allows users to create apps with minimal coding, making it accessible for those without deep technical skills.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source platform, Budibase offers flexibility, transparency, and the ability to customize the software to suit specific needs.
  • Rapid Prototyping
    Budibase's drag-and-drop interface and pre-built components enable rapid prototyping, speeding up the development process.
  • Integration Capabilities
    The platform supports integrations with various databases and third-party services, enhancing its versatility.
  • Responsive Design
    Budibase ensures that applications are mobile-friendly and work well across different devices and screen sizes.
  • Community Support
    Being an open-source project, Budibase has an active community of users and developers who can offer support and contribute to the platform.
  • Cost-Efficient
    Budibase can significantly reduce development costs since it offers a no-code/low-code approach and is open source.

Possible disadvantages of Budibase

  • Learning Curve
    While easier than traditional coding, users may still face a learning curve to become proficient in using Budibase effectively.
  • Feature Limitations
    As with any low-code platform, there might be limitations in terms of advanced features and customizability compared to full-code development.
  • Performance Issues
    Applications built on low-code platforms like Budibase may encounter performance bottlenecks, especially for highly complex or resource-intensive apps.
  • Security Concerns
    As with any platform, there may be security implications, particularly if not properly configured or if plugins introduce vulnerabilities.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Though Budibase is open-source, reliance on its specific ecosystem could lead to challenges if users decide to migrate to a different platform.
  • Scalability
    For very large-scale applications, low-code solutions might face scalability issues compared to traditional development methods.

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.

Analysis of Budibase

Overall verdict

  • Budibase is generally well-regarded for its ease of use, flexibility, and ability to expedite the development of internal tools. It offers a cost-effective solution for businesses looking to empower non-technical users to build applications, while still providing the necessary tools for developers to extend and customize applications as needed.

Why this product is good

  • Budibase is an open-source, low-code platform designed to speed up the process of building and deploying internal tools. It is considered good by many users because it allows non-developers to create powerful applications quickly and easily. It features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, integrates with various data sources, and supports automation, making it versatile for many use cases. Additionally, being open-source gives developers the flexibility to customize and extend the platform according to their needs.

Recommended for

  • Small to medium-sized businesses looking for rapid application development solutions.
  • Teams that need to build internal tools without extensive coding knowledge.
  • Developers seeking an open-source platform that allows for extensive customization and integration.

Budibase videos

How to Build a CRUD Application in Minutes

Active Admin videos

Harry Potter and the Active Admin

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Budibase and Active Admin)
No Code
87 87%
13% 13
Developer Tools
76 76%
24% 24
Web App Builders
100 100%
0% 0
Data Dashboard
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 Budibase and Active Admin

Budibase Reviews

Top 9 Low-Code Tools for 2023 for low-code development
Budibase is a low-code platform designed to simplify application development. It provides a visual interface for building UIs, defining data models, and creating custom actions. Budibase supports integrations with various databases, APIs, and authentication providers, enabling users to create robust and scalable applications. Its user-friendly design and intuitive features...

Active Admin Reviews

We have no reviews of Active Admin yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Budibase should be more popular than Active Admin. It has been mentiond 62 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.

Budibase mentions (62)

  • Top 5 Open-Source AI Internal Tools on GitHub
    GitHub Https://github.com/Budibase/budibase Website Https://budibase.com/ License GPL-v3 Stars 27.4k Forks 2k Issues 294 Pull Requests 12 Contributors 112 Last updated Updated today Documentation Https://docs.budibase.com/docs/quickstart-budibase-ai. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • I Found Perfect CMS after Years of Trial and Error
    Many providers such as Directus, Appsmith, or Budibase all have ways to fully customize the viewing and editing experience of each field. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • How to Build Internal Tools 100x Faster
    It is possible to speed up the development and delivery process for many internal applications by using no-code or low code tools. These vary in offerings from open source to SaaS, including popular ones like AirTable, BudiBase, Retool, NocoDB and others. These can all greatly help speed up delivery times. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: What is the easiest way to create a CRUD web app in 2024?
    Budibase is great at generating CRUD apps based on a model. https://budibase.com/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Why I'm skeptical of low-code
    I keep a list of them, I think I originally got most of these from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33592990 (not OSS) * OpenBlocks - https://github.com/openblocks-dev/openblocks * Interval - https://interval.com/ * Bracket - https://www.usebracket.com/ * Budibase - https://budibase.com/ * AppSmith - https://www.appsmith.com/ * ToolJet - https://www.tooljet.com/ I only have direct experience with AppSmith. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
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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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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Budibase and Active Admin, you can also consider the following products

Retool - Build custom internal tools in minutes.

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

Appsmith - Appsmith is an open source web framework for building internal tools, admin panels, dashboards, and workflows.

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

ToolJet - Open-source alternative for Retool

Sequel Pro - MySQL database management for Mac OS X