Recently been learning Bubble and someone sent me a PM me alerting me to Wappler. Spent most of last night and this morning (Aus time) looking into it and it seems like it might be exactly what i have been looking for these last few months to build a web application for a new SaaS business i’ll be starting.
I just don’t know if it will be ‘powerful’ enough in its current form (i know you could build enough with it and code manually to achieve anything…)
Basically i will be needing to build a fairly sophisticated and niche piece of software that will be sold and managed in a B2B model and some of the functionality it will need will be things Full Calendar and Scheduler. Or using some custom algorithms and trend calculations.
I don’t know yet how it will all work, i’m still working on the high level plan etc. But i guess like a lot of people i want to know that if i invest my time i wont hit any insurmountable roadblocks?
I don’t have a coding background, but i have been taking full stack JS courses on Udemy and will continue to do so if it will help (DB courses as well if needed)
Any thoughts from the community on how well Wrappler can be used to achieve complex web/cloud applications (most likely single page applications in nature)??
Welcome! Being ‘powerful’ enough, especially when compared to Bubble, will not be an issue.
If ‘powerful’ means performance in a production environment, it comes down to your hosting, which can easily start with a very basic package and grow with you as your demands (users) grows. Evan a basic package will give you much better performance than the shared Bubble environment.
If ‘powerful’ means an editor that makes the developer job easier, plus 1 for Wappler as well, mainly because if the standard interface blocks you, you can drop into the code and enhance your project (while of course suggesting an improvement to the Wappler team which will be quickly vetted and considered.) When the editor in Bubble blocks you, that’s the end of it, you’re stuck. For example, sometimes I drop in and make a custom PHP page, not because I know PHP, but because I can get something online that meets a need, and integrate it with my workflows.
I think a good primer on relational databases will benefit anybody working on web apps. Having a proper structure in place will save many headaches down the road. Bubble has something that at times seems like a relational db, but it is not. With Wappler you have access to much more functionality with your db.
Thanks for the responses so far. I guess that would always be the answer considering you will always have access to the code, so ultimately the app can be as limitless as ones coding knowledge.
It seems that Wappler could be really great for me, I don’t think I’ll know untill I actually get in and have a look, checking out the docs and videos along the way.
Am I right in thinking that when you reach the limits of the visual builders, the main options to extend the functionality is through manually coding or using APIs?
There isn’t the same sort of plugin system like in bubble is there?
I can give you an example of when you’ll do this. You mentioned using full calendar. Wappler currently doesn’t have a calendar feature that works right out of the box. Implementing full calendar is soooooo easy even if you don’t know how to code(as I don’t). It took me maybe 20 minutes with only a basic understanding of HTML. So once you find something Wappler can’t do odds are you’ll be able to figure it out whether you know how to code or not.
Actually Bubble’s plugin system is just a UI and some predefined functions so you can query the data you stored. Nothing that can’t be done in Wappler.
To be honest Bubble’s plugin system is actually quite limited and a source of frustration for plugin developers. You can read about it in the forum.
So their plugin system is actually worse than Wappler’s because of the limitations imposed by the platform. And Wappler doesn’t have one as such…
Their plugin marketplace is a totally different thing. They have hundred of plugins available that work out of the box with bubble. From all of them I think that there are only about 5 plugins that are really good and worth it. The rest are just hacking the shortcomings of the platform. And you end up paying more for plugins than for Bubble subscription only because of the limitations.
You are also able to run node.js funcions through their plugin system. But these are actually just API calls to AWS Lambda service which you could also do from Wappler. And Wappler team are working on adding node.js to the server model.
At first you would think that Bubble’s plugin system and marketplace are a game changing thing compared with Wappler. But after years of using it as a user and developer you get to the conclusion I mentioned before.
The plugin system they have is limited by Bubble. And that is a hard limit.
Am delighted to find you over here… I am the person who PM’d you and suggested looking at Wappler!
As others have said in the past, with Bubble you are learning Bubble’s closed world… And the challenging parts of my Bubble app have been overcoming Bubble’s limitations. In Wappler you have the whole open community of web standards to draw from, and the flexibility to just drop into some code when you need something different.
I think the only drop in power you may find is in sometimes needing to go out to the wider web community to get your answer to something like a calendar layout module in php… The answers are all out there but may need some research… But then the solution is based on standards and portable to whatever hosting platform you choose.
Glad to see you can get the public acknowledgment @Antony.
If it wasn’t for your PM I honestly would never have stumbled upon Wappler, and I certainly had been searching very hard to find something just like this.
I’ve been reading through here and checking out vids trying to see if it will be right for me, naturally I’ll take the trial but want to have the time to maximise the 7 days.
Looking forward to finally find a web app development home to settle into after trying so many.
@Philip_J, I’m so glad my message was helpful to you. I have to do it as a pm as I need to be on Bubble for quite a while yet and I don’t want to be publicly seen to send people away to Wappler…
I actually haven’t used Wappler yet… like you, I’m watching all the videos first, getting my head around hosting, and I will actually first use it to create the web site for my Bubble app… and then I will slowly bring the app over to Wappler during next year… by which time you may be a Wappler guru and able to help me out here and there!
All the best,
Antony.
