Hey guys, i know this is maybe a question that a few person have asked here on forum, but i would like an opinion from the ones who have right now their app on Live and can list here some Real Pro and Cons.
I am not asking about revealing the name of your app, I`m asking about real issues of what you’ve been experienced so far, and what would be the better choice.
I’ve shared most of my opinions on this before in the forum, so I’ll leave my comments to those posts.
But, to add something new. It’s important to remember that Bubble excels as an app builder, not as a static site builder. Knowing how to point domains to multiple places (ie. acme.com to WordPress, app.acme.com to Bubble) is the biggest hurdle (which is a pretty small one).
Some sites (like Wordpress, Wix and SquareSpace) are great for really quick development of static sites with minimal need for having a CRUD database. Webflow is great for pixel perfect static sites, and is getting better from a flexible database standpoint (but not much better).
My belief is that a static site is easier to maintain and launch on a platform that excels in that. (Ie. SquareSpace makes responsive design significantly easier out of the box). Getting Bubble to function well for static sites is certainly possible (and has plenty of advantages), but may not be worth the added time cost of building a static site on a platform that specializes in static sites.
Adding to Dan’s points, the main reason I prefer to keep them separate is due to who would be responsible for each. Typically a marketing team would control the front-facing site and a product dev team would be responsible for the app.
The marketing team would prefer speedy site updates to improve/update the sales process and having to rely, or wait, for prod dev to roll out changes could be a road block. In addition, it would take considerable time to create a Content Management System that would allow non-dev people to make updates in Bubble versus using a tool that’s already more tailored to that process. If you spent the time building one in Bubble it could have advantages down the road, but for startups I think it’s best to piece together as many ready-made tools until you’ve got the idea off the ground and it looks like it’s going to be a viable business. At that point you could spend more time developing custom solutions.
So, whether you use one Bubble app to rule them all, two separate Bubble apps, or Webflow/Wordpress/Bespoke and Bubble is up to you. You’re bound to get opinions for each and I think your specific needs should help with your decision.
For myself I found that working with two different systems is just frustrating.
For now I have a website up using google to temporarily hold the spot until I release and then building it with bubble. I found myself looking for simple features that bubble has and that the site builder doesn’t have.
I have thought about doing a site somewhere else and I keep going back to bubble for everything.
Two Separate Sites
Pros
Marketing Team Separate Space
Quick turn over with static site
Anyone can be assigned that not just a dev
Visually appealing
Cons
Limitations that bubble doesn’t have
Learning both programs well takes time
Visual inconsistencies maybe? Might be hard to match what you have already set up.
Cost more money to white label 2 sites.
We can add more to the list. This is what I have so far.
Something interesting in separating the landing page/marketing site from the actual application is that you can potentially save on capacity. Especially if you have a lot of prospective visitors compared to your number of active users. Of course, this has to outweigh the cost of the static website builder service you pick.
I have build my website with landing page WordPress theme from SKT Themes. The site performs good but now i want to create a landing page with bubble app.
I suggest building your landing page based on HTML, WordPress is slow, needs a database and you don’t need a CMS for a static page. You could use Jekyll and forestry.io or cloudcannon to add a CMS functionality if you really need it.
If you need something like letting the user type in their mail on the landing page, get a redirect and have it prefilled in the sign in form. - this is easily doable as well with little js.
There are a lot of good looking SaaS HTML Themes on themeforest.com!