Hey everyone,
I’m Aditya, an engineering manager at Bubble, and I’m excited to share a foundational upgrade to how Bubble mobile apps work.
We’ve migrated Bubble’s mobile app engine to React Native’s new architecture. This is a significant infrastructure upgrade that improves performance, stability, and sets the stage for future mobile capabilities. To take advantage of this upgrade, you’ll need to create and submit a new build from the Bubble editor; existing live apps will continue running on the previous architecture until updated.
Why this matters
Bubble mobile apps are built on React Native, which is the framework that powers your app’s native experience on iOS and Android. Until now, Bubble’s mobile engine used React Native’s legacy architecture — a system where communication between your app’s logic and native device features (like the camera, animations, or navigation) had to pass through an extra layer, adding overhead to every interaction.
React Native’s new architecture removes that extra layer and replaces it with a more direct, efficient system. In practical terms, this means less overhead, faster interactions, and a more responsive app experience for your end users.
What’s improved
Faster app startup and interactions: By removing the overhead of the legacy architecture, your mobile app can start up faster and respond to user interactions more quickly — particularly noticeable on Android devices.
Smoother animations and UI: The new architecture includes an updated rendering system that processes UI changes more efficiently. This means smoother scrolling, transitions, and animations throughout your app.
Better stability: The new architecture provides a more robust foundation with tighter integration between your app’s logic and native device features, reducing a class of hard-to-debug issues present in the legacy architecture.
Future-proofing: This upgrade brings Bubble’s mobile engine in line with the latest React Native standards, which unlocks our ability to adopt new capabilities and optimizations as the ecosystem evolves.
What you need to do
If you have a live mobile app: To take advantage of the new architecture, you’ll need to create a new build from the Bubble editor and submit it to the App Store and/or Google Play. Your existing live app will continue to work, but it will be running on the older architecture until you create a new build.
If you’re building a new mobile app: No extra steps needed — any new build you create will automatically use the new architecture.
If you are using mobile plugins: The switch to the new architecture may have introduced breaking changes that impact plugins. Please test your app thoroughly in TestFlight or testing track before publishing your app to users in production. Plugin developers have been notified and will be making any adjustments.
If you are using BubbleGo: Download the latest version on iOS and Android for the latest experience.
How to get started
Create a new build from your Bubble editor, deploy it, and submit it to the app stores. That’s it — the new architecture is applied automatically. No changes to your app logic, workflows, or design are required.
If you run into any unexpected behavior after creating a new build, please file a bug report so we can investigate.
For more details on building and deploying mobile apps, check out the manual.
Let me know if you have any questions!
— Aditya and the Mobile team
