The Best Ruby on Rails Admin Panels Compared

Every Rails app needs some way to manage data. You add users. You edit records. You check reports. Doing all that by hand is slow. You could build custom screens for every task. But that eats up time. It also means more code to test and maintain.

An admin panel gives you CRUD interfaces right away. You can search, filter, and export data without extra effort. That means you spend less time on plumbing and more on features your users actually see.

Think of it as your internal toolkit. It keeps your team fast. It keeps your Rails applications organized. And it saves you from starting from scratch each time. 

If you’d rather not worry about setup and want experts to guide you, teams like atEnbi can help. They know Rails inside out and can set up your admin interface the right way.

Now, let’s understand the best Ruby on Rails admin panels:

1. RailsAdmin Overview

RailsAdmin has been around for more than a decade. It’s one of the “classic” Rails admin panels. The tool is DSL-driven, so you describe your resources, and it builds the admin for you. That makes it fast to start, but it can feel limiting once you need something custom.

Key features:

• CRUD interfaces straight from the DSL.
• Search and filtering are built in.
• Data export to CSV, XML, and JSON.
• Custom actions per model.
• Authentication via Devise, CanCanCan, or Pundit.
• Support for Mongoid, not just ActiveRecord.
• Simple file upload support.

Why people like it:

• Mature project with community trust.
• Good defaults out of the box.
• Saves time when you need a quick panel.

Where it falls short:

• The UI looks dated.
• Documentation lives mostly in a GitHub wiki.
• Customization can be painful.
• The development pace is slow, with fewer updates.

RailsAdmin is ideal if you need to implement CRUD quickly. But if you want a sleek UI or heavy customization, you’ll hit walls.

2. ActiveAdmin Overview

ActiveAdmin is the old guard of Rails admin panels. It launched back in 2010 and quickly became the “default” choice for many teams. If you’ve touched Rails, you’ve probably seen it. The project is mature, trusted, and backed by a huge ecosystem.

It runs on a strong DSL. That means you can customize almost anything, though sometimes it feels verbose for small tweaks. The tool integrates smoothly with Devise, so user authentication is straightforward. You also get dashboards, exports, and a rich plugin ecosystem, which makes it a good choice.

Key features:

• Strong DSL for configuration.
• Devise integration with an AdminUser class.
• Resource and record management.
• Custom dashboards.
• Wide range of plugins and extensions.

Why people like it: 

• Huge community
• Lots of built-in features 
• Serious flexibility.

Where it struggles: 

• Slow updates 
• Dated UI
• Scattered docs
• Boilerplate-heavy DSL.

ActiveAdmin is still a powerhouse. But it’s showing its age compared to newer, sleeker options.

3. Avo Overview

Avo is the new kid in the Rails admin world. It showed up in 2020 and instantly felt different. Why? Because it’s built on modern Rails practices like Hotwire and Stimulus. No heavy front-end stack, no messy setup. Just Rails, but faster.

Avo gives you a clean, modern UI out of the box. It feels fresh compared to Rails Admin or Active Admin. You don’t waste hours hacking around defaults. Most features just work, and when you want to customize, it doesn’t fight you.

Key Features:

• Rich field types (text, images, enums, WYSIWYG, tags, etc.).
• Inline editing.
• Devise and policy integrations.
• Custom actions and dashboards.
• Great documentation.
• Hotwire + Stimulus for interactivity.

Why people love it:

• Modern design
• Productivity-first defaults
• Rapid updates from an active team.

Where it stings: 

• Some advanced features are paid
• The ecosystem is still smaller than older players.

But if you’re starting fresh today? Avo feels like the future.

Features are one thing. Popularity is another. Let’s check which tools developers actually use.

Let’s zoom out for a sec. You care about more than just features. You want support, activity, momentum.

• ActiveAdmin is the veteran here. It boasts around 9.6k GitHub stars and 3.3k forks, showing deep community trust. 
• RailsAdmin sits just below with about 7.9k stars and 2.3k forks. Still solid. 
• Avo is newer, but growing fast, i.e., around 1.7k stars and 292 forks, per LibHunt. 

In short, ActiveAdmin leads by reach, RailsAdmin is steady, and Avo is young but very enthusiastic. Choose based on how much community lift you value, and yes, projects with fewer stars can still shine. 

Administrate (thoughtbot)

Administrate generates clean admin dashboards using plain Rails controllers and views. It avoids DSLs and lets you override defaults in familiar Rails code. You can customize fields, views, and dashboards using standard Rails patterns and plugins.

Trestle

Trestle offers a modern, responsive admin interface built with Bootstrap. It uses a simple Ruby DSL to define resources, tables, forms, and menus. You can customize with plugins, themes, and built‑in authentication. 

Motor Admin

Motor Admin is a low‑code, UI‑first admin engine. You configure your admin panel directly in the browser without writing configuration code. It supports flexible setup and CSV exports.

If you are confused about how to build an admin panel, you can contact software companies like atEnbi. atEnbi helped transform JapanDen, upgrading Ruby/Rails, refactoring code, and launching a modern CMS-style admin dashboard. Content editors gained full control to manage hotel listings, images, and descriptions without dev support. The result? A scalable, user-friendly platform poised for growth.

Now that we know how the best Ruby on Rails admin panels are, let’s put them side by side. The comparison table below shows their features, how easy they are to change, the look of the UI, the docs, the community, and the cost. 

After comparing all three admin panels, we can say that no one tool is “best” for every project. The best choice depends on what matters most for your Rails apps. Think about your needs, then pick the admin interface that matches them.

Before you leave, read the key takeaways of the article:

• Rails apps require admin panels to efficiently manage data.
• RailsAdmin is quick for CRUD and supports Mongoid. ActiveAdmin is powerful, with a big community and plugins. And Avo is modern, fast, and easy to customize.
• ActiveAdmin leads in ecosystem size. RailsAdmin is steady but aging. And Avo is newer but growing quickly.
• The right choice depends on the project's needs. 

Need an admin panel but not sure where to start? Contact atEnbi. We are a small product studio that builds beautiful, custom tools with Ruby on Rails. We’re based in Warsaw and London, and work closely with you from sketch to launch. Want to see your admin in action? Book a discovery call today or just say hello, and let’s talk.