Bubble Reviews & Product Details

I'm a software developer, and would prefer to just write software. However if you want to start VERY quickly, and not deal with authentication / accounts, database management, hosting, etc, then this tool is pretty good. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There's a lot of "quirks" that you'll just have to learn to make it work. The order or methodology for writing Bubble expressions can sometimes be extremely fidgety.

Also, it sometimes appears "unstable" and you'll spend a while trying to work out what is wrong with how you're trying to do something, when the answer is "refresh the page" to make something work. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Bubble templates have really helped speed up the process wihem developing for number of my clients Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Basic features like chat stream seem like a challlenge for bubbles team to have a official plugin for Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Easy to use, super to cost effective and can be deployed instantly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The speed part of it. The eprformance is not at par with full stack in house tech, but it gets the work done. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like that you can build applications with no code. There is a ton of extensibility and there is a ton of opportunity for established players to make money off new people trying to learn the platform. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Too bloated. You can basically do anything with it but its going to be a pain doing it and the pricing is far from affordable. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

– I can set up a non-complicated product with a data-base, external API call and custom user flow just in a couple of hours.

– Bubble workflows are powerful.

– Reusable elements.

– Prebuilt Login/Sign up component with basic workflow.

– Development and Production stages + Version control.

– Instant preview and debugging mode.

– Free trial was useful.

– Responsiveness control. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

– Awful UI. I spend a lot of time just trying to find very common things. The worst part is element inspector. There are no hints and icons, you just need to remember what lies where, without visual prompts. Just look at how Webflow does it to understand the difference. Comparing to modern no-code platforms Bubble UI looks completely outdated.

– No CSS classes in the core of product. Instead of this Bubble elements could be natively triggered by #id. You need to install additional plugin to have a control over CSS if you are developer.

– Can't view custom CSS effect on preview. Why just not to add 100vh or 'position: sticky' in the native elements control?

– Weak native 'table' component. I was trying to built notion-like rows and there were no option to control this table after publishing in user-interface.

– No pre-built tabs component – everything should be set up manually using custom states.

– No CMS. Maybe this is not a Bubble priority but If you need to set up SEO friendly blog (which is actually a data-base) you will be surprise you can't just create .../blog and .../blog/article URL structure – but you need to use URL routing plugin to hack this.

– Default settings of elements sometimes are annoying. If I put a line of text on the canvas it's already has minimum fixed height and width. And I always have to put everything to zero manually.

– Custom font setup was found to be so tricky. I've spend about an hour to learn how to fix this.

– Rich text editor is poor.

– No code export. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The promise by bubble.io as a whole to make it possible for anyone to write software, is very much true with this platform. It's definitely not intuitive for beginners (but they are working on this!), but the capability of the platform and encompassing everything you need to get started including database, middleware, APIs and front-end, along with a very large marketplace of both plugins & agencies able to build out functionality - it is everything you need to get started with a fully-functioning webapp. There is very little more they could add to the capability, to be honest - including the fact it has real-time data updates, which many competing platforms lack. You can also integrate with any other platform you wish via APIs, or via plugins - so it is truly a very flexible platform. To be completely honest, it is an enjoyable experience using bubble to build an app most the time, and it is rare I encounter a completely insurmountable issue. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Vendor lock-in is a serious problem with bubble.io. You have no "generic" export capability that you could readily move into other platforms, meaning you are pretty much stuck once you scale to a certain point, as you will be effectively forced to stick with bubble.io, or rebuild from scratch elsewhere. Whilst you can export your app and data, they are in formats that are not readily importable into any other platform. This is especially the case with the app itself, which cannot be stood up standalone (e.g. self-hosting), nor can it be imported into any other platform, or even read by a human (it is purely code). The backend also is hosted solely in the US - which is not ideal for other regions, as performance can be very slow for a user in another country. Furthermore, leveraging internal functionality (e.g. the database) makes for some very slow performance in many use cases, which increasingly worsen as you scale the amount of data and users. Heavy optimisation is a necessity to get anywhere with the platform - more often than not, requiring you to learn the intricacies of how bubble.io works behind the scenes if you want to get performance and not have it cost you a mortgage on your home due to the WU pricing from sub-optimal code.

Due to the opaque pricing structure based on "Workload Units (WU)", which are calculated using hidden metrics on bubble's back-end infrastructure, the more you use the platform - the more it will cost you to run. This means that scaling requires you to either minimise your usage of the platform, or leverage alternative solutions to minimise the usage. This SIGNIFICANTLY detracts from the platform, since to save costs you are effectively forced to look elsewhere for core components that bubble.io is offering - such as database - simply to avoid being gouged on pricing. This is especially a problem for startups, since if you were creating a consumer-facing app and happened to go viral on social media - you could rapidly run out of funding if you were relying on the "workload unit" pricing model, since the work your app is doing for all your new customers would effectively price your startup out of the market before it's even reached scale! Effectively, this means that bubble.io is targeted for two customer classes: the VERY early startup (who has few customers to create workload), the VC-backed venture (with enough funds to build a new app outside bubble) and the enterprise customer with deep pockets. There is no customer class for those self-funded categories trying to build something in their garage off spare change.

Bubble.io has community forums that are literally the only source of help for a "bubbler" for marketplace plugins. But if you say something the community moderators (who aren't necessarily employees) don't agree to - expect to be PERMANENTLY banned, without so much as a warning. These permabans also cannot be contested, cannot be undone, and effectively result in you losing all access to any help for building your app. If you encounter an issue with bubble.io itself - you still retain access to bubble's support even if this happens to you (and bubble does have friendly and helpful support staff), but they will NOT help you whatsoever if the issue has anything to do with a plugin from the marketplace, or if you are simply trying to work out how to solve a basic issue with your app. You are literally on your own. For scaling a business on the platform - the fact that they would treat paying customers in this manner who contribute in the forums, then allow literally no avenues of recourse, is a major red flag for using their platform for scaling a business. The fact that a community forum is even allowed to be operated in this manner calls out serious concerns on their operating model, as other non-bubble forums are littered with similar experiences from others. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is very robust as a Backend and almost everything which can be done with coding can be done using Bubble without a single line of code. There is no barrier for users and No of Records which allowed me to choose Bubble as the option to go for. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is a bit Complex. For example, I am a coder who knows the concepts but uses a No Code Tool. But for a Non Coder who doesn't know the concepts, things can be a bit difficult. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I appreciate Bubble's intuitive platform that empowers users to create diverse web applications without the need for extensive coding knowledge. Its user-friendly interface significantly reduces the development time, allowing for rapid deployment and iterative improvements. This democratizes web app development, making it accessible even to those who haven't spent years learning programming languages. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

While Bubble excels in ease of use for building applications, there's room for improvement in managing and maintaining complex applications as they scale. As web apps grow to include more features, pages, and data, the process of managing these elements can become challenging. Enhancing the platform's capabilities for better scalability and maintenance would be highly beneficial. Simplifying the management of larger, feature-rich applications would help ensure that users can continue to efficiently evolve their projects as they grow. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is nothing to like about Bubble after experiencing their customer support. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Do not use bubble.io - They do not care about security. I found a security flaw in their template and they could'nt care less.

The template is still for sale and has multiple other issues which they say are still not a problem.

This is because the support is low level and not skilled 3rd/4th line quality.

Bubble also makes you pay a higher plan to get multi factor authentication.

The platform is slow and the support is so bad they cannot find a way to fix it.

The platform is a ripoff - competitors are more innovative and far cheaper.

The support is dire - they are not technical experts on their own platform - cheap.

Its clearly being run into the ground as its been around since 2012 and has multiple issues and lacks basic things.

You are left troubleshooting yourself or using the forum which means you are on your own.

Resizing windows, copy/pasting or deleting options is problematic.

The only people supporting this platform is the cottage industry hanging off it as they make a bundle given bubble leaves people to fend for themselves.

Bubble don't improve anything - this is evident from the multiple complaints across socials at present Feb 2024.

Do not use bubble no code platform, there are much better alternatives. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I use Bubble every single day for my work, and my entire business is built around it (I'm a freelance developer). It is my go-to solution and if a client doesn't want to use it, I will generally recommend another agency to work with.

Bubble stands above other no-code solutions because of its full stack approach. It has a built-in database with privacy controls, the ability to create your own public APIs, and infinite extensibility through official and community plugins that integrate with 3rd party APIs like Stripe, Twilio, and Google.

Testing is extremely easy in Bubble because you can live preview your app with one click at any time during development. The built-in debugger is very useful as well. Once it is time to go live, you click another button and deploy to production. It's so easy to go live it almost feels like cheating.

If you have any trouble, the Bubble community forum is an incredible resource. The official support team is helpful as well, but I rarely need to reach out to them because the forum is so good. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There are some quirks to it, like any tool. It would be nice if you could return data from custom workflows and build native mobile apps. However, it just so happens the team is working to ship both of those in the near term. They are constantly building on it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.