I’ve been using bubble for 2 years already, and as much as I love it, still haven’t used it beyond toy apps.
I would still like to know if someone is using Bubble for high traffic websites (with the lower plans). Something like 10K page loads a month with a website that is mostly static, maybe some basic workflows on each page.
Considering the average bubble app page is 0.6-1Mb I wonder how many users can use the app at the same time.
I’ve asked this before, but still couldn’t get any clear answer
I have searched and asked this question many many times before, but I still have no clear answer to this.
As users we really need this information to help us make the right decision.
Why not try reaching out to a few of the agencies listed on the bubble site. Or some of those with training resources. I’m sure some of them will easily be hitting those numbers.
This topic is always fascinating to me, and I am sure I am on an island with my line of thinking about it… but doesn’t this whole thing fit into the “good problems to have” category. I mean, I get wanting to plan ahead, but how many apps have you (the collective you/us, that is) built that actually resulted in 10k page loads a month? Build something, get lots of folks to start using it (which is the hardest part, of course), and figure out how to scale/optimize as you go.
It just feels a bit “cart before the horse-ish” to me, and again, I certainly understand wanting to plan ahead. Heck, take the latest Bubble podcast, for example. The GiveLocal guys built that thing in a day, and then they started to hit performance issues when it went big. By that time (a mere four or five days later), USA Today wanted to get involved, and they got an entire dev team behind them to help. So, in other words, anything can happen once you get the traffic.
Anyway, just my two cents… does anyone else think this way or am I truly on an island here when it comes to thinking about Bubble’s limitations? I guess what I am really trying to say is that if you come in to Bubble thinking too much about the limitations you are going to face when your app starts to get a lot of traffic, you may never get to realize how awesome the platform really is.
I’m too concerned about this.
I’m on a Personal plan and I haven’t got any clear answer on how much traffic or load the Personal plan can handle. I also wanna know how much impact plugins have on the bubble app performance.
I’m currently researching a bunch of nocode tools to build a product and this is one of the big concerns for me when considering bubble. The companies that have built their services/websites on bubble seem to load very slowly or be a bit laggy/buggy.
I totally get the idea of getting a project launched quickly then iterating once the concept is proven…but I think user experience is also pretty important so having a slow or janky experience may work against me. Personally, if I use a site that has a subpar user experience I’ll consider other options.
Reece here from Announcefly - you’ll definitely need a bigger plan for real apps that have lots of traffic - you won’t really get by on the Personal plan for example. But that is to be expected I’d say because it’s for personal or small projects - as you grow and scale you’ll need a lot more ‘units’ of hosting to power it.
We recently ran an Appsumo freebie and quickly found ourselves maxing out and getting timeout errors on the Personal plan, now we’re on the Professional plan with a couple extra units and doing ok.
Traffic spikes can cause issues (and I’d love if Bubble didn’t throw a timeout error for our users and instead just scaled dynamically and billed me for the overage which is better than outright stopping a user sign up) but it’s your job as the admin of your app to monitor your server load, as with any dev environment traditional or otherwise.
It also comes down to how well your app is built to scale.
I built a niche seasonal app on Bubble that gets a “big” (it’s all relative ) traffic spike every March. This year in March the app had 126,000 pageviews, with numerous spikes of 1,000 pageviews per hour:
During peak moments in time, I might have 50-75 users on the site concurrently, but generally more like 20-30 concurrent users during peak hours. The app has some complex searches and workflows that are constantly triggered during those times.
The app generally runs on a monthly Personal plan, but on peak days I upgrade to Professional and add extra capacity. I think I added between 2 and 4 extra units on peak days this year and that was enough to keep capacity from spiking above 100%, which kept the app running smoothly. During non-peaks, I downgrade back to Personal. I agree that auto-scaling would be wonderful vs. having to predict/monitor your own peaks, upgrade manually, have Bubble charge you for a month at that new rate, and then get a credit for unused time upon downgrade (with an emphasis on the word credit — it’s not a refund, so beware this process if your app is on an annual plan).
It’s on you to optimize your app for performance, of course, but generally speaking Bubble can handle the kind of traffic you’re talking about.
I agree with a lot of what you have to say here @mikeloc
My belief is a lot of people who have ideas of building an app for enterprise level don’t fully have a grasp on the other obstacles they will face before it really takes off.
However, I do agree that there is not enough concrete information, especially for non-coders who have no prior experience in managing an app, concerning what they could expect of bubbles capabilities in terms of con-current users etc. For instance, I have a difficult time gauging how much it will cost me to run an app at scale, and figure out a good pricing structure for my users so that I don’t shoot myself in the foot by offering too low a price that can not sufficiently cover costs or turn a profit if my operating costs go way beyond what I could predict based on no information.
I’d like to see something that could benefit users to show a sort of range / scale of what each of the bubble pricing tiers could handle in terms of con-current users, or the number of workflows on a page etc. This would help out people when they are trying to guesstimate the progression of their app as it scales and the costs involved with that progression. It would also help users not overestimate their needs and upgrade to a higher bubble plan or buy more credits than needed.
Great point, @boston85719… there is a lot of middle ground (and therefore, room for improvement) between the little information that seems to exist today and a complete and total, “Eh, I’ll figure it all out when my app looks like it’s becoming the next Facebook.” approach.
It’s interesting that you bring up pricing, though. In my experience (which includes co-founding a startup at one point as well as working for more software companies than I care to admit over more years than I can believe I have to admit), nobody (and I mean literally nobody) figures pricing out “correctly” in the early (or even middle) stages of their business. I have been a part of companies with millions (and even tens of millions) of dollars in revenue that were still trying to “dial in” their pricing model. Heck, take our beloved Bubble here. They had to make a pricing change last year, and I’m sure we all remember how that thread went down. So, spoiler alert for anyone who is trying to start any kind of software company… your initial pricing will be “wrong” and will (with a very high degree of certainty) have to change at some point, and some of your existing customer base will be none too happy that you didn’t get pricing “right” the first time. To the folks in that latter group, the only question is, “Where is your multi-million-dollar business that nailed pricing on the first try, eh?”
Again, great stuff, Boston (oh, and super awesome response, @edd)… I love everything about topics like this one and the ideas/discussions they bring to light.
Thanks @mikeloc it is great to hear from experienced people from the industry and the idea of getting pricing wrong to begin with and having to try and dial it in is another form of iteration that takes place in software / startups I suppose.
It’s an annual “March Madness” style tournament for children’s poetry. Hence the seasonal traffic spike.
I used to run the event on a Wordpress site stitched together with WP plugins with a ton of manual work. Barely slept. Bubble was a godsend. I built the app in a rush four years ago and still have yet to pay a lot of early “design debt” … but it gets the job done.
) traffic spike every March. This year in March the app had 126,000 pageviews, with numerous spikes of 1,000 pageviews per hour: