Welcome Bubblers! (An honest review)

mebeingken · September 11, 2019, 10:35pm

Well, I look at it this way…

I started looking for an alternative to Bubble for the following reasons:

Vendor lock-in
Overall performance – at least at the pricing level I thought was reasonable to pay for
Slow data manipulation (db inserts, delete, etc) even when using data api
Rolling changes to production code with no visibility as to the changes
Too much reliance on community for support, even on a professional paid plan
Very difficult to customize once the GUI editor falls short
No frameworks
Limits: performance units, csv upload, collaborators, workflow length, etc.
Some long-time missing basics like order of operations, auto increment field to ensure uniqueness at the db level, date types that are not impacted by timezone, etc.
Can’t collaborate because every single keystroke a developer makes, causes the preview to force a refresh regardless of where the change was made
etc., etc. etc.

It was an easy decision to try Wappler because:

Investing time in learning is fun for me
I know how to stand up my own infrastructure in the cloud and already had a place for this to live
I know my way around a relational database

I stayed with Wappler because:

None of the issues noted above occur with Wappler
When there are bugs, they are appropriately prioritized and resolved
The business model is more to my liking…pay monthly for the editor, and do whatever you want with the deployment that meets your needs. It focuses the team on what I need most, a solid editor, not a production environment
Thursdays. It is great fun to wake up on the west coast to a new version of the editor that typically has not only bug fixes, but significant feature improvements.
Even without feature improvements, I have yet to run into a situation where Wappler could not deliver, mainly because you can drop into the actual code and do whatever is necessary.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say again here – Bubble and Wappler are really targeting different market segments. There is of course overlap, but having used both the distinction to me is clear. They both are very good at what they do at their core, but their core is different – Wappler provides an editor. Bubble provides an entire platform.

I would not recommend Wappler for everybody, anymore than I would recommend Bubble for everybody. For me, it has been like night and day – my style of working and my skillset are much more aligned with Wappler. I could not be happier. I’ve seen plenty of comments of the opposite experience, but that isn’t due to the product, it is due to the individual needs of the user.

scaleuptech · September 11, 2019, 10:58pm

Hi all, I came here over from bubble because I’m worried over the price increase. The thing I’m worried the most about wappler is that bubble can allow for multiple users to edit and develop the app at the same time. Can wappler do the same thing? What are the limitations that wappler has in this regard?

Contemplating the switch because I have 2 non coders and 1 coder in the team…a switch to a platform without the ability to collaborate real time would be very impactful .

Thanks!

mebeingken · September 11, 2019, 11:05pm

I’ve never figured out how people work simultaneously in Bubble with the way it refreshes on every change…but glad it is working for you!

In wappler, you would rely on the industry standard way of collaborating amongst developers which is using git. With Wappler supporting git out of the box, it is actually a much easier process than using the command line version. You can create branches which allow developers to work independently and then merge the changes back together.

I’d recommend you search out a quick git primer to understand the basics.

scaleuptech · September 11, 2019, 11:45pm

It involves a lot of page refreshing haha…not that bad actually when working on different pages .

Alright, will research on git!

mangooly · September 12, 2019, 6:13am

Thanks @JonL and everyones opinions. Thay are really helpful. I guess my next question is:

Does Wappler want to go in the same direction as Bubble, make it easier for non coders? Does Wappler have this in their road map. As a non coder I think my best bet is to start with bubble and then if my MVP goes well than move to Wappler in the future, you never know, I might have money to have a coder in the team. Yes, I would have to rebuild it, but thats a good thing if my MVP goes well, right? Un less of course Wappler have plans to make Wappler easier for non coders into their road map, than it might make sense to stay and wait.

So I guess my question is: Does the Wappler team plan to take Wappler into the same direction as Bubble, making it easier for non coders. I think it would hugely benefit, I think there are many people like my self, that see huge potential with Wappler and the freedom it has, but feel its to complex to use still for non coders.

Thanks

Teodor · September 12, 2019, 6:32am

@mangooly indeed it is in our roadmap to make Wappler even easier for new users, integrating some features to help the so called ‘non coders’ build workflows easier and more visually.
More news about this and some other exciting new features are coming soon, so stay tuned!

mangooly · September 12, 2019, 6:37am

Thanks for the quick reply @Teodor. Will stay tuned.

sitestreet · September 12, 2019, 7:38am

Ooh, I like being teased

JonL · September 12, 2019, 3:51pm

So it’s one week since I purchased the license and I already finished my first full page. The login page

Everything in frontend and backend is working peachy.

It’s a simple cover login page that you can see in any other BS4 theme.

But I remember when I started with Bubble that I needed at least 2 to 3 months to get something looking this good and behaving correctly for all viewports.

Thanks for sticking with standards guys!

max_gb · September 12, 2019, 4:04pm

Looks great @JonL! Although I’m spending a bit more time learning and setting up server actions and data bindings, my time spent designing with Wappler makes up for this, especially when compared to Bubble. Struggling with viewports is a thing of the past with frameworks like Bootstrap.

nshkrsh · September 14, 2019, 4:56am

multiple people from our team work simultaneously on the same project on wappler.

how we achieve this:

have a onedrive folder with the main wappler project folder in it.
keep ondrive syncing on all computers where wappler project is to be used.
with synced code, working on same project is possible.

what is not possible - or at least we haven’t tried - is working on the same page at the same time.
in our experience we don’t need that. we just ask the other member to close the file and wait couple seconds for the updated file to sync over onedrive.

JonL · September 14, 2019, 5:15am

Why don’t you guys use GIT? It’s meant for your use case.

nshkrsh · September 14, 2019, 5:17am

we use git as well.

but find that onedrive auto sync is faster for sharing the progress with the team.

xander · September 14, 2019, 3:00pm

I’m a long time bubble user that has decided to convert to wappler. I like your model better. You have done a nice job. There are a lot of things bubble does well, but I believe they made a critical mistake in building their platform around this notion that they had to lock people into it. The recent price increase is due to cornering the visual coding market, and it is a smart business move - in terms of generating more profit, but the unintended result is that it forced a lot of bubblers to second guess whether being locked into a plan that they have no control over is a smart business decision. Wappler seems to be in a position to fill that void. However, when I started using bubble three years ago I had zero coding skills. JS and Python seemed impossible to learn. I was overwhelmed. I have decent coding skills now, and setting up a server is not a difficult task. But I think a lot of visual programmers - whether they use bubble, or wix, or shopify, most of them are in the same boat that I was in. They might be able to make an A record and point it to a server, but that is about it. So for those people, I recommend that you provide hosting as an option. Because this platform is much more complex than bubble.

mebeingken · September 14, 2019, 3:15pm

Welcome @xander!

I think that is a logical thought, but I hope Wappler does not go that direction. Just consider how many resources Bubble is currently putting into dealing with their hosted infrastructure. They end up fighting fires due to hosting, instead of developing features for the editor. It is exacerbated by the fact that they roll changes several times per day on the production environment causing apps to behave differently. I could go on, but in short I hope this doesn’t happen – two different businesses.

EDIT: Now what I would support, is more documentation/examples on how to setup the server environment in support of Wappler. Having spent too much time this week setting up drivers for a few servers, I would have found value in that myself!

JonL · September 14, 2019, 3:36pm

Can’t agree with you enough. Dealing with infrastructure consumes too many resources.

However I think if Wappler explored that option in the future it would easier for them than Bubble. It’s clear that Bubble is poorly optimised and that is because they have reinvented the wheel too many times to abstract people from true coding. i.e. scheduled workflows as loops

I see Wappler more in the Webflow league of managed hosting. I am assuming that webflow produces friendly code compared to Bubble and that probably makes their hosting platform easier to maintain.

But I do prefer that they focus on development and deployment tools.

It would be great to have certain integrations with the main actors in cloud hosting. Something similar to serverpilot plus one-click deployments from GIT repositories.

So they don’t have to focus on the servers. You plug in some API/SSH keys in Wappler and with a click of a button you have a server deployed, linked to the domain you set and with your code deployed.

mebeingken · September 14, 2019, 3:43pm

Yep, that makes a lot of sense. That would definitely help make Wappler accessible to more people.

Hyperbytes · September 14, 2019, 3:45pm

Suitable hosting is available at https://wapplerhosting.com

HappyBaz · September 25, 2019, 7:19am

Hi,
I am in a situation very similar to Mangooly, but perhaps more confused.

I want to build a website that is part course, part web app. The app side of things I want to gather information similar to a personality assessment, but then return results that have been ‘worked’ on. To explain, I have built what I want (roughly) in MS Excel. Then I want users to be able to store this and compare old to new as they keep using the product (or service) for years to come.

What I want to build is a membership site that has the three parts:

Landing page, free stuff, blog, etc
Course
App

After reading ‘Unscripted’ (M J DeMarco) I want to ensure I retain control, this is a primary concern. I am also a bootstrapper and like Pieter Levels (book ‘Make: Bootstrappers Handbook’), I want to be able to create, understand, and keep running my own business website creation.

I have never coded except for AFL (Amibroker Stock Market Charting Software) and some stuff for a few months way back in 1991 (Machine Code and C+??).

I’m so confused, I want to launch something this year, I’m working hard for no income right now but still have a family to support. (old new dad).

I’ll attach a PNG of a Xmind Mind Map that is not complete of details, but you’ll get an idea of where I’m at in trying to understand all of the options.

So, my understanding of all that stuff that makes up a website is poor, so Wappler is going to be a hell of a learning curve that just maybe takes too long. Can I use Visual Lansa (no idea what it costs)? What about MS PowerApps?

The Static pages and the course part of my website are simple enough to do with an LMS (I was settled on LearnDash on Wordpress), but maybe not a great idea. Shit I’m so confused with all of the options.
I don’t even know what to ask anymore, except…help? Can I, should I, use Wappler?

Thanks in advance.
Baz

Freddy_Blockchain · September 25, 2019, 7:37am

Wappler is the way you go. It uses modern standards, can even make native apps and run on your windows, gives you full control and lets you implement or change code. If you know how to make a proper database and I mean with all his 1:n logic, (btw I’m sure you know with C skills ) then building a frontend with wappler in such short time is fun! Wappler isnt a hell of a learning curve, but yes its not for someone without html and db basics. With most apps you are completely betting on a company and not free to move or add smth. Wappler projects are working independent and you are in most of these software solutions locked in on some platforms. Give it a try, wappler is mindblowing!

All possible. The last point with „App“ I‘m really not a fan cause I never liked native Apps. I dont understand why people are downloading apps for smth where they can have a web project immediately visible and updated, without the hassle of using local phone space and annoying manual update. Of course some native functions like „notification“ is not easy to implement with html, or not possible yet…? But with all these different screen solutions I dont see why people are porting and coding each time for a new platform like android, windows, ios… blackberry? haha. Web and SaaS is the future, but yes sometimes for some functions you sadly need a „native“ app.