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Ask HN: Why aren't Django Admin style dashboards popular in other frameworks?

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Re: Ask HN: Why aren't Django Admin style dashboards popular in other frameworks?

#71

Admin for Symfony Framework ( PHP ) https://symfony.com/bundles/EasyAdminBundle/current/index.ht... Admin for Laravel (PHP) https://nova.laravel.com/ Java Spring Boot https://docs.spring-boot-admin.com/current/getting-started.h... I think many other Frameworks have this, did you search for it?

> Admin for Laravel (PHP) https://nova.laravel.com/

This is a paid product whereas Django Admin is a part of Django.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't Django Admin style dashboards popular in other frameworks?

#72
post #9

As soon as you need frontend auth you'll regret going with flask or fastapi. There is no equivalent in the python world for django admin

Can you elaborate? Both Flask and FastAPI support various authentication methods.

None of them matches the out-of-the-box functionality of django for a classic saas app. You're constantly reinventing the wheel to get a production-ready user & auth workflow.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't Django Admin style dashboards popular in other frameworks?

#75
The core reason is (imo) that it's simply not possible to provide a Django admin equivalent in other frameworks because they lack the functionality to do so.

The basic dependencies for the Django admin are:

- authentication

- user permissions

- forms

- the ORM, to generate forms from model definitions and forward the admin's CRUD operations to the database

No other framework comes with all of these dependencies builtin. Yes, there are individual plugins to retrofit them, but then you would start building your extremely complex admin plugin on top of a lot of unaligned dependencies. Just one of them needs to go into a direction that doesn't align with your needs and your project is done. That's not a good base to start from. Django doesn't have this problem because the entire framework is built under one roof.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't Django Admin style dashboards popular in other frameworks?

#76
post #57

It's probably a combination of things. The Django Admin existed before Django publicly existed. That meant that once anyone started using Django they knew that they should constrain their use of Django in certain ways so that the Django Admin would work with their usage. Features that would be added to Django would be built with the Django Admin in mind. Many tools like Flask or FastAPI don't have an opinionated mode…

I'm trying to figure this out, or understand if this is moment to try and do something about it. This seems like such a common use-case but the offerings across frameworks are all fragmented and sad. We're at a scale now where Django Admin is creaking and the lack of extensibility is killing us - for example, we'd love to build actions that work based on specific form inputs rather than just the standard atomic bulk…

I am building https://subzero.cloud

If your data is in pg/mysql/sqlite/clickhouse this might work for you

That is for js/ts stack

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't Django Admin style dashboards popular in other frameworks?

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to figure this out, or understand if this is moment to try and do something about it. This seems like such a common use-case but the offerings across frameworks are all fragmented and sad. We're at a scale now where Django Admin is creaking and the lack of extensibility is killing us - for example, we'd love to build actions that work based on specific form inputs rather than just the standard atomic bulk…

I am building https://subzero.cloud If your data is in pg/mysql/sqlite/clickhouse this might work for you That is for js/ts stack

Unlike retool, you almost never need to touch backend because the system already provides 90% of your needs just by introspecting the database, you only implement super custom endpoints where you need custom complicated queries or you need to call 3rd party systems

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't Django Admin style dashboards popular in other frameworks?

#78
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've kinda hit why systems like the Django Admin aren't more common. At some point you simply need to build custom code. I've seen engineers spend so much time futzing with the Django Admin trying to contort it to their use case when they could have just built their own form in a fraction of the time. I was going to question the "tremendous value of Django Admin", but I thought I shouldn't. I was going to s…

I think what you're calling mediocre is precisely the same thing I was calling tremendous - the fact it allows us to ship mediocre form inputs with complex programmatic validation and permissions without the need to touch a line of frontend is indeed pretty great. The use case is https://spotdx.com . We're a YC backed healthtech product with a significant amount of need for safe manual data entry and updates, and the…

If by backend you mean your db (and not your python/rails code) and you want django admin functionality but with react on the frontend, check out https://subzero.cloud (ts lib), i am building it

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't Django Admin style dashboards popular in other frameworks?

#79
post #30

It’s mostly just a UI for CRUD. And most systems are more complex, requiring UIs that operate on business logic. Rails and Phoenix also offer similar features (called scaffolds), but they are optional. I’m sure other frameworks have similar options. Meanwhile, Django (like Python) sometimes has unconventional names and approaches to doing common things, so that makes the pair unpleasant and awkward for those of us wi…

It is not just a UI just for CRUD. You can easily add custom actions (calls to web services, export/imports, heavy background tasks that operate on a row or collections of rows), filters, related tables with custom behavior, display custom derived/calculated values, etc. Additionally, you can skin it easily - and in some cases, even create dashboards in a very simple manner. Check out out Django Unfold for an example…

Of course it’s possible to customize and extend, just as with other frameworks it is possible. We aren’t talking about closed systems here.

Even writing a fully custom “admin” interface for one part of a business process isn’t usually much work if the system itself (which Django would also depend on) is reasonably designed.

Writing something from scratch isn’t that difficult, and you get exactly what you need without fighting against the framework.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't Django Admin style dashboards popular in other frameworks?

#80
post #38

It’s mostly just a UI for CRUD. And most systems are more complex, requiring UIs that operate on business logic. Rails and Phoenix also offer similar features (called scaffolds), but they are optional. I’m sure other frameworks have similar options. Meanwhile, Django (like Python) sometimes has unconventional names and approaches to doing common things, so that makes the pair unpleasant and awkward for those of us wi…

You can perfectly do business logic operations through the django Admin. It's extensible, and doesn't require a lot of effort to set it up.

I never suggested it was not extensible in Django.

But whether starting from a scaffold of another framework or building entirely custom, the effort in making custom, complex admin interfaces isn’t difficult.

As with most software systems, the biggest part of the work is dealing safely with end users. Admin interfaces can be simpler because of this, and therefore they are less effort to make.

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