Is it Mandatory to Publish the Application?

Questions
1

I have a question that is not development related.

I know that there is an option to publish the application and make it live.
But is it mandatory if I want other users to use the application?

I am using the Hobby plan and I can’t export and import databases from one application to another.
So it would make it more convenient to use the test version.

Are there any security risks or anything like that?

Thanks!

2

There are a few big challenges with this:

  1. If you continue to do update the webapp, which you’re likely to do, users will be interrupted with the banner asking them to refresh the page after every single tiny change you make in the editor. Very disruptive to the end user
  2. You don’t really have any version control at this point, making it hard to “roll back” to a previous version of your webapp if things aren’t going well
  3. You won’t be able to use a custom domain or email address

I’m sure there are others, but these stand out to me off the top of my head.

3

I encourage you to push it live. While it may not technically be required, there’s a ton of challenges to not pushing it live, including may that are non-obvious. For example, I believe Google won’t index any of your version-test pages so no search traffic.

Plus, Bubble provides a great service for us at a low price. And, simply because you might be able to finagle the system to pay less doesn’t really make it fair to them. If they’re providing you tools to build a web app and tools to host it, then it’s only fair to pay them a fair price for it.

4

At some point I see Buble updating their Terms of Service, if it’s not already in there, to make using the “test” app as a “production” app against the terms. This is how most software vendors operate. If you’re caught you could be banned or face fines.

5

I understand, I guess I’ll just have to push it live and probably get upgrade the plan.

Thanks a lot to you all!