How dynamic is Bubble.io? Am I going to hit a wall of limitations three months in?

This is a super interesting question.

Especially if you are checking out Bubble (as I once was), and you want to know “Am I going to invest 3 months learning something, only to hit a wall and have wasted a whole bunch of time?”

Well, let’s put it this way.

Bubble lets you build some really complex apps.

You can take the “quick, hard-coded” approach when you are starting out. It’s actually the best place to start.

By this, I mean that you set up your database table to have specific fields.

Then you build a form on a page with inputs, date pickers, checkboxes, and dropdowns. You manually map each form input to a field in the database.

Easy.

OR you level up, and make it a bit more challenging. Rather than hardcode every form, you build a dynamic form builder, like Google Forms or Survey Monkey.

You create a datatype for a form. Then you create types of inputs on your UI. Then you create another datatype for content attributes (e.g. question 1, checkbox, label “do you like chocolate?”). Then you store the responses in separate response and response attribute datatypes. You add the ability to drag items to reorder questions.

Both are possible with Bubble.

Sure, the dynamic option takes more time, more planning, and more skills. But the point is… it is totally possible in Bubble without needing plugins (ok maybe just for the dragging part!).

So if you can build Google Forms with Bubble, what else can you do?

In the last 3 years, we’ve built:

• Software as a service tools
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems
• Calendar Booking apps
• Learning Management Systems (LMS)
• 2 and 3-sided Marketplaces
• Subscription sites

Our apps have had dynamic features like:

• Notification systems with templates, placeholders, modes, and logs
• Chat systems with conversations, messages, emojis, and file/link shares.
• Audit logging
• File management
• Multiple user roles

Yep. All possible in Bubble. Without reliance on external plugins, web services, or 🥁… code.

In fact, with enough time, I’m confident that a great dev could replicate the functionality and user experience of the following platforms with Bubble’s core features and minimal code:

• Airbnb
• Stripe
• Salesforce
• Google Mail
• Medium

Sure it might not be the ideal tool for all of these, and there would be some external web services involved, but at least you could do it if you wanted to.

Written By Will Ericksson

Managing Director of MomentumGroup.tech, Founder of Momentum Academy, and former Bubble Bootcamp/Bubble Immerse Instructor, created over 40+ apps with Bubble.io.