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Payload CMS VS Active Admin

Compare Payload CMS VS Active Admin and see what are their differences

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Contents:
  1. ยป Base Details
  2. ยป Videos
  3. ยป Reviews
  4. ยป Alternatives

Payload CMS logo Payload CMS

Headless CMS and Application Framework built with Node.js, React and MongoDB

Active Admin logo Active Admin

The administration framework for business critical Ruby on Rails applications.
  • Payload CMS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-10

Built with React + TypeScript, Payload is a free and open-source Headless CMS. Finally, a CMS that works the way you do. No black magic, all TypeScript, and fully open-source.

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

Payload CMS features and specs

  • Headless CMS
    Payload CMS is a headless content management system, allowing for flexibility in how content is delivered and displayed across different platforms.
  • Customizability
    It is highly customizable, enabling developers to tailor the backend and content management experience to specific project requirements.
  • Developer-friendly
    Built with modern technologies such as Node.js and React, Payload CMS is designed to be intuitive and efficient for developers.
  • Open-source
    Payload CMS is open-source, providing transparency and the ability to contribute to its development or modify it according to your needs.
  • Rich Media Support
    It supports a wide range of media types, making it easy to manage and deliver rich content.
  • Advanced Access Control
    Payload CMS includes advanced access control features, allowing for fine-grained permissions and security settings.
  • Extensible API
    The CMS provides a powerful and extensible API, facilitating seamless integration with other services and applications.

Possible disadvantages of Payload CMS

  • Learning Curve
    As a powerful and highly customizable CMS, it may have a steeper learning curve for developers unfamiliar with its ecosystem.
  • Initial Setup Complexity
    Setting up Payload CMS initially can be more complex compared to some other CMS solutions that offer more out-of-the-box simplicity.
  • Smaller Community
    As a relatively newer and niche CMS, Payload CMS has a smaller community compared to more established CMS platforms, potentially limiting available resources and third-party plugins.
  • Hosting Requirements
    Being a Node.js application, it may require specific hosting environments that can support Node.js, which might not be as widespread as hosting for PHP-based systems.
  • Performance Overhead
    Complex customizations and integrations can introduce performance overhead, requiring additional optimization and scaling efforts.
  • Documentation
    Depending on the level of functionality required, the available documentation might not cover all edge cases or complex scenarios, leading to potential challenges during development.

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 Payload CMS

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Payload CMS is a good option for many use cases.

Why this product is good

  • Payload CMS offers a modern and flexible headless architecture, which allows developers to create custom content management experiences using JavaScript and Node.js.
  • It provides a clean and intuitive admin interface that is designed to be easily customizable to fit different client needs.
  • Payload CMS includes built-in features like access control, versioning, and a robust API, which makes managing content efficient and secure.
  • The developer-centric approach means it's highly extendable and works seamlessly with modern development workflows.

Recommended for

  • Developers seeking a customizable, JavaScript-based headless CMS.
  • Projects that require a flexible content infrastructure and easy integration with other JavaScript libraries or frameworks.
  • Teams looking for a CMS that can scale with their application and development needs.
  • Organizations that need advanced content management capabilities such as complex access control and content versioning.

Payload CMS videos

+ Add

Payload CMS

More videos:

  • Review - Building a Professionally Designed Website with NextJS, TypeScript, and Payload CMS - Episode 1
  • Review - Building a Professionally Designed Website with NextJS, TypeScript, and Payload CMS - Episode 2

Active Admin videos

+ Add

Harry Potter and the Active Admin

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Payload CMS and Active Admin)

Payload CMS

Active Admin

CMS
100 100%
CMS
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
Developer Tools
100% 100
Blogging
100 100%
Blogging
0% 0
Data Dashboard
0 0%
Data Dashboard
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Payload CMS and Active Admin. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

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

Payload CMS Reviews

  1. Alessio Gravili
    ยท Founder at Bonfire Leads e.K. ยท
    Best Headless CMS

    Payload CMS is the most customizable & flexible CMS which exists

    ๐Ÿ Competitors: Strapi, Directus, Sanity.io, Prismic
    ๐Ÿ‘ Pros:    Everything can be customized|Swap out any admin components|Ability to create your own fields|Automatic graphql & rest api|Define collections & fields in code|Serverless support
    ๐Ÿ‘Ž Cons:    Does not support all databases yet
Best Node.js CMS platforms for 2022
Payload comes with built-in email functionality. We can use this to handle password reset, order confirmation, and other use cases. Payload uses Nodemailer to process emails.
Source: blog.logrocket.com

Active Admin Reviews

We have no reviews of Active Admin yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Payload CMS should be more popular than Active Admin. It has been mentiond 94 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.

Payload CMS mentions (94)

  • A Complete Guide to Building a Payment System with Payload CMS and Lemon Squeezy
    Learn how to build a full payment system using the modern stack of Payload CMS, Next.js API Routes, and Lemon Squeezy, including a deep dive into debugging common API errors. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Run Payload Jobs on Vercel (Serverless) โ€” Stepโ€‘byโ€‘Step Migration
    I recently did a video tutorial on using jobs and queues in PayloadCMS and the solution I provide will not work in a Vercel deployment, runs locally and will probably also run on Railway because those are actual servers. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • How to Run Payload CMS in Docker
    Payload is an open source backend framework and it is mainly used as a content management system. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • I Found Perfect CMS after Years of Trial and Error
    Payload, a CMS powered by Next.js, or Sveltia CMS, a Decap CMS alternative using Svelte, are examples of CMS that I recommend to avoid until they become framework agnostic. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • [Video] Payload CMS Custom Array Field Component
    Learn how to implement a custom tagging system in Payload CMS using the array field and a custom React component! This video walks you through building a dynamic tag input where users can add, remove, and manage tags directly within the Payload admin panel. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

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 / about 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 / over 2 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
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

Strapi - Manage any content. Anywhere. The leading open-source headless CMS. 100% JavaScript / TypeScript and fully customizable.

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

Contentrain - Contentrain is the first scalable content management platform combining Git and Serverless technologies.

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

Directus - Free and Open-Source Headless CMS

Sequel Pro - MySQL database management for Mac OS X

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