Open Letter to the Bubble Dev Team

Questions
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Bubble Dev Team,

I want to start by saying that I love Bubble – it’s still the best no-code builder out there, and I truly believe in its potential. That’s why I’m so frustrated with the lack of progress in the editor over the past few years. It feels like every new feature release is either poorly conceived or poorly implemented.

Yes, Bubble has introduced some good features, but competitors have been consistently rolling out major, well-executed updates in the same timeframe. One competitor, for example, released 5 major new features just this month and another 5 last month. These aren’t small tweaks, but substantial new functionalities, like entirely new elements and major usability improvements.

Here’s a quick overview of the features this competitor released last month:

  • A new calendar element
  • A major upgrade to their form builder
  • A new breadcrumbs element
  • A new timeline element
  • A major upgrade to the upload element
  • Significant AI functionality improvements and deeper embedding (basically an AI chatbot that can create/update anything in the enter app)

What’s more, these other tools can roll out all these new features without causing major outages, breaking existing features, or introducing dozens of new bugs.

Bubble is still a fantastic tool, and I want it to succeed long-term, but what’s going on? The last few feature releases have been very underwhelming, and to be honest, the past few years of updates have felt stagnated. A lot of new features have been promised, especially at events like BubbleCon, but so far, very few of these have actually been rolled out. It’s starting to feel like a lot of empty promises and broken trust.

Should we expect Bubble to continue stagnating, or are you planning to step up your game? There are solid alternatives starting to catch up, and Bubble is falling behind - and fast.

I’d prefer not to move to a new tool, but it feels like Bubble is just spinning its wheels while competitors make huge strides forward month after month consistently and become increasingly better options (especially given the increasing number of bugs in the bubble editor). I really hope to see Bubble turn a corner soon and return to its former innovative spirit.

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2

I believe I know what platform you are talking about…

so, are you implying in your post those new updates with the other platform didn’t have complaints about bugs?

I’m asking because I’m wondering how closely you followed those updates when you made your post.

Added: I will also add, Bubble is miles ahead of what the other platform can do. That means the technology behind Bubble is much more advanced. Plus, Bubble has tons more users. So, I don’t think it’s exactly fair to compare the 2.

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why don’t you just switch?

serious question.

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I’ve been an active Bubble user for years. I use it every day and love it. I can understand your points…

As an example, we can mention the table element, which is something that would certainly be extremely useful for thousands of users and was poorly released. With dozens of bugs and without the main functions that are expected on this type of component, such as filtering, column sorting… And it seems that it is abandoned.

And one thing that also bothers me are these more “extreme” changes that are disapproved by the vast majority of power users but are still forced down to our throats without any polish. As an example, we can mention the implementation of WUs, which took a LONG time until a system was implemented that gave us the minimum of transparency in this process and also, untill now developers still find several dynamics that cause undue counts of WUs, leading to undue charges. And recently the controversial update of the workflow screen, which could be MUCH better if they had had the patience to listen and implement some of the features that were discussed and suggested by the community.

I understand that many updates are needed to implement some features in the future or ensure the company’s economic growth, but on a platform with such a present community, I miss people listening to us more.

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Hey @brad.h ! :waving_hand:

I know the question wasn’t for me. But I would like to answer it as well, because I really think it was a serious question and not an irony

I am extremely grateful for what Bubble has done for me and my business. I love the platform and the fact that I’m here “wasting my time” raising this flag and “fighting for improvements” shows how much I care about it. I don’t want to quit. I want it to grow. To improve. I want to continue using it for many and many years. If I didn’t care, I would simply change.

If you saw a friend of yours, of years, taking some actions that, in your opinion, are wrong, would you change your friendship? Or would you try to talk to him first?

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This :+1: , plus switching cost is too high and no serious alternatives

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7

I would suggest getting behind the platform with ideas and not constantly tearing it down then.

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8

I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that native mobile app functionality was the largest request by many devs for a long time. That’s what they’ve been working on, and they essentially had to build a ton of new editor functionality to make that happen. Aside from any of the AI stuff, the mobile editor and native mobile apps were a massive lift, and they are in beta test phase now.

The mobile editor is what’s driving changes that didn’t seem like big priorities to people, like the App Interface Manager. That had to be overhauled to make way for mobile apps and web apps to be built side by side using the same backend.

I spent a decade in product management for B2B companies like Bubble, and I promise you that Bubble employees really do care and that they hate to see people upset with the current state of things. But they also have to keep up with the demands of their board (who want flashy features like AI) and keep new customers coming in the door in order to keep extending the runway long enough to keep improving. It’s a hard job, and what makes it harder is that it’s literally impossible to build all the things. As much as you wish you could make every user of your product happy, you never will.

Prioritization is the hardest part of running a software company. There is no standard approach because every company’s users and customers are different. The best thing we can do is keep giving honest feedback here in the forums and take any opportunity to connect with the team for deeper research sessions. Let’s just try to assume best intent and continue to be constructive with feedback.

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9

Serious question. What is the definition of a power user in Bubble?

I see this thrown around in discourse here in the forums so what defines the power user? Wouldn’t Bubble be in a better position to know who their power users are?

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I wonder to what extent has tech debt been a factor in Bubble’s stagnation. It’s been around longer than most these tools.

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It’s certainly a factor. It’s also unavoidable. Every time you write a line of code, you are creating future tech debt. Can companies that just started be more nimble and add feature requests more quickly? Yes they can! But that’s because they don’t really have enough users yet and they are trying to find product market fit. Once you find a fit and have a successful product, congrats! Now it’s going to be much harder to change things without people getting upset.

No matter the change or the intention behind it, humans dislike change. It’s hardwired. Generally speaking, the update has to be something like 10x better for it to be perceived as a positive change by your average user. Most redesigns are a marginal or neutral benefit to most users, so people dislike them in general.

However, users don’t have the benefit of seeing the whole roadmap. Sometimes you have to swallow a vitamin now in order to feel better later. Nobody likes that, but it’s part of life (and software).

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12

If you look at most posts on other platforms, it’s clear that bugs and feedback are being heard and addressed, not ignored. Meanwhile, there’s a growing frustration with issues in the editor and the new workflow builder on Bubble. Many of these problems have been known since the beta phase, yet they remain unresolved.

Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses. The platform I mentioned has several advantages over Bubble, but it also has its drawbacks. Many of those drawbacks become less significant as your app scales, but getting started can be slower and more challenging.

The other platform is more low-code than no-code, but with AI deeply integrated into both the database and the editor, the need for coding knowledge is quickly disappearing. You can already ask the AI to construct the database schema and populate it with mock data, debug workflow errors, run bulk updates, build workflows, write expressions and even modify an existing page’s design. And it does this about 80% right on the first try. This is what I had hoped Bubble would add when they introduced AI, but instead, we got a limited page builder that didn’t add much to the editor.

AI is just one very obvious example of a nothing-burger feature that is hyped up but does very little to move the needle. The new workflow editor is another recent example, at best it is a marginal improvement on the old editor.

The main point of this post is that Bubble is stagnating while competitors are advancing rapidly. I’m heavily invested in Bubble and want to see it succeed. To ensure its long-term success, we need to address its weaknesses and failures in order for it to become better.

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I’ve already moved several small Bubble apps to other platforms, but I still have several large, complex apps on Bubble that will keep me here for a while longer.

I don’t want to simply switch to other platforms—Bubble is a great tool, but it’s struggling to make meaningful progress. The current path of progress seems to be more of a downgrade than a meaningful upgrade.

Perhaps all these small changes are setting the stage for a major upgrade to the editor—I certainly hope so. But as it stands, the editor has been steadily deteriorating with each update. It’s slower, buggier, crashes more often, and is less intuitive than it used to be.

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When in doubt I open up this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JItxZUEeqlM&list=PLoNVJrdvQQYl5K5JiECbl9ho-Dc7z9JZg&index=10&ab_channel=Bubble

This Alessandro guy so competent, engineering team is struggling with tech debt every day, C suit exploring new ways to gain more customers and expand the horizon (native mobile + AI stuff ). But this design team man, they are simply put so radical and opinionated. I hope we get a better picture or public statement on how they are willing to improve user feedbacks and feedback weighting mechanism

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15

Indeed, I completely agree. Bubble has become a very slow editor with an outdated UI/UX, and the workflow editor has barely evolved since its creation in 2012 — it still lacks basic programming concepts like if/else logic and loop functions.

Mobile support, which has been “coming soon” for years, is still in private beta in 2025, which is incredibly frustrating.

Support response times have become painfully slow, and even when they do reply, it’s often with a generic message that doesn’t resolve the actual issue.

As someone who has used Bubble for over 10 years, I remember the early days when reaching out to Emmanuel or Josh got a direct and fast response — and sometimes even a quick implementation of requested features.

Now, it feels like feature requests submitted via forms, email, or the forum go into a black hole. The WU (workload units) system has been a disaster for my apps — it killed performance and skyrocketed my costs.

Compared to tools like FlutterFlow, or AI-powered platforms like Lovable and Bolt, Bubble is falling far behind. These platforms are rolling out features rapidly, staying modern, and providing far more responsive support.

Despite all this, I still love Bubble for its visual editor, all-in-one solution, and because I’ve invested years building apps and plugins on it. But the slow progress and lack of openness — no source code access, no export options, and very limited extensibility — are deeply frustrating. Bubble needs to seriously step up if it wants to keep its loyal community.

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