I’m curious to know how people are currently handling push notifications for web apps built with Bubble, especially when the app is saved to the user’s phone as a shortcut/home screen app.
I’ve been trying to set this up with OneSignal, but I’m running into some issues with the implementation and getting everything to work properly.
Is anyone here currently using push notifications with a Bubble web app/PWA that users can install or save to their phone?
If so, I’d really appreciate hearing how you set it up, whether you’re using OneSignal or something else.
Any tips, examples, or suggestions would be really helpful. Thanks!
Hello, I have used Progressier. Worked very well. But if you plan to have some system that can work with a native app, then you need to look at systems like firebase which I think is very difficult.
The thing that usually breaks this on Bubble is iOS. Web push only works there if the user actually adds the app to the home screen through Safari, and only on iOS 16.4+. If you are testing in the browser tab, or added it from Chrome on iPhone, you get no prompt and no notifications, and OneSignal looks broken when it is not.
Second thing worth checking: your service worker scope. Bubble serves some files from its CDN, so if the worker is not being served from your own domain root, registration silently fails and you never get a subscription.
What does OneSignal show for the subscription itself, does the device appear as subscribed, or does it never register in the first place? That splits the problem in half.
I honestly couldn’t get this working in Bubble. I tried several different approaches, both with and without OneSignal, and even though I’m meeting the minimum requirements (installed shortcut, minimum iOS version, etc.), something still isn’t working as expected.
What’s really strange is that I can reproduce the exact same behavior with a web app built with Lovable, for example, and it works pretty easily there. Push notifications work normally on both iOS and Android.
So I’m not sure if I’m missing something specific in Bubble or if there’s some limitation I’m running into.
I’m not a Bubble specialist, but I’ve dealt with a very similar problem when taking my own web-first app to iOS and Android.
If your goal is only web/PWA push, the iOS home-screen and service worker limitations mentioned above are definitely worth checking first.
If you eventually want more reliable mobile push, another option is to keep the existing web app and add a native mobile layer around it, then handle push through Firebase/APNs rather than relying entirely on web push.
That’s the route I ended up taking with my own app and it’s been much more predictable on mobile.
Happy to compare notes if you decide to go in that direction.
That’s cause any browser running on iOS (not macOS) uses Apple’s Webkit. So the same limitations of Safari can apply to browsers like Chrome or Firefox.
Unless you’re in the EU, those get to use their native engines.
So expect alot of weirdness when it comes to iOS compatibility.
