Rant - When is Bubble going to focus on features that reduce Development time?

Idea
1

It’s quite frustrating to see Bubble’s roadmap include so much AI, and other nonsense, when simple things like a file uploader can take weeks to build. The current native multi-file uploader is quite half-assed, and many of the attempted plug-ins don’t go the full way to provide contempory functionality and UX.

This issue isn’t just with uploaders, it extends to a lot of features that are core to Apps in 2025, but require a lot of time and mucking around:

Core modules that should have an out-of-the-box data model and associated UI features:

  • Calendars, events, scheduling
  • Addresses and lookups
  • Chats
  • Multi-file uploaders and previewers

Other things that should be much more flexible/included without the need for plugins:

  • Ability to have client-side ‘things’
  • Customisable UI elements like dropdowns/checkboxes/select boxes (without the need for plugins)
  • Native drag/drop functionality
  • Native list management and comparisons
  • Native inner RG access to outer states and values

Think about how much time we each spend doing these things for every app we build, multiply that acrossa all of us. So much waste.

The faster Bubble makes the process for Devs, the more apps we can build, in turn increasing the revenue opportunities for Bubble. It seems everything is targeted at acquiring ‘new’ customers, but not increasing the spend and experience for existing customers.

This might seem like complaining, but after spending a week f***ing around with an uploader, I’m fed up.

9 Likes
2

Just postulating here but I reckon the bubble execs have had a ton of pressure from investors and this is largely directing where they spend their time and money.

Things really started going the wrong direction after the major funding round back in July 2021 (100 million) - this is right about the time that the focus shifted from “meaningful improvements” to “flashy and marketable features” and more broken promises than results.

I also imagine they took a lot of new talent onboard and it has been quite difficult for the founders to adapt to leading such a large team.

Still, bubble is the best at what it does by a mile - even with all the shortcomings.

** Also, use a 3rd party uploader like uploadcare or filestack - don’t use the internal uploader, it’s too limited and buggy.

5 Likes
3

These are handled by the community and should continue to be handled by the community via plugins

Is this because you believe you shouldn’t have to pay for a plugin that provides this functionality?

This is why they are doing AI…to speed up development time to increase number of customers and at the same time, increasing the speed of competent developers.

Bubble should be focused on real important issues, like stability, performance and mobile.

I don’t recall it the same way, as I was around for that and before that, the $100 million funding round did not come with ‘flashy and marketable features’ it came with a huge improvement by bubble to reduce and flatten the learning curve through their initiatives to promote more educational content. It also ushered in the flexbox responsive design system, an EXTRAORDINARY improvement to the way we build responsively in Bubble and opened the door for a whole host of features/UI/UX that a developer can do. It also enabled Bubble to 2x and then 4x their team size, especially engineering, so all of what came from that is huge as well.

I believe they have handled that quite well, and I’m sure they hired some top talent very skilled at doing that for them.

Overall, Bubble is focusing in the right areas mostly…obviously I don’t get overexcited about AI as I don’t really need it, but I’ve heard other experienced devs say it has sped them up a bit with mundane tasks.

I believe Bubble needs to continue to trust their community and increase that level of trust for the community to step up and do things Bubble doesn’t and shouldn’t.

3 Likes
4

Oh 100%.

Their roadmap has investor-driven written all over it.

1 Like
5

I’d be interested to know why you believe this. From my point of view, it means there are a million different ways to do one thing, no consistency to documentation/knowledge management, and there is no platform-level support from either a functionality, performance, WU usage points of view.

Not at all.

AI isn’t actually speeding up our workflow. It’s just speeding up basic things like page design and data models.

I agree stability and performance should be prioritised, but the items I’ve mentioned above should all take precedence over AI. They can then bring in AI over the top once they’ve gotten the core offering right.

I also strongly disagree with Mobile. Unless something has changed, my understanding is that their feature requires us to maintain a SECOND code base. I acknowledge there are some features which really need this, but I understand this is mainly things like Background Location, and sounds/haptics, which seem like quite small use cases across all the different types of apps. (I made a post about this here; Question: What does Bubble Native mean for my Responsive App? - #3 by thethinklab.au)

This completely goes against one of the core value props of Bubble. Again, this screams Investor-driven to try and compete with something like FlutterFlow to draw in a mobile-only customer segment.

You said above “these things should be handled by the community”, but have contradicted yourself here when there are perfectly good wrappers available by the community (e.g. Natively). rather than actually improving the product as it stands now.

6

Just a couple of thoughts (I won’t comment too much, as I have been in trouble before on the forums for speaking my honest mind!).

  • Use Floppy or ListShifter to handle client side “thing” management. It also has some capabilities for drag and drop. It’s an essential plugin AFAIC. It can also do things like caching and iterations (both essential functions you should add to your list!).
  • Addresses and lookups I have no issues with the native address lookup, which has been working well? With this said, the maps element is absolute trash - it’s limited, and largely useless, and I had to use plugins to address the limitations.
  • Use JSON plugins to handle custom data structures (I like JSON manipulator, it has served me very well)
  • Use an external service for chat functionality, such as Ably or Xano Realtime. Xano also has some built in accelerators to get a chat app going. You can use the Xano Connector plugin to handle that, as it has functional RT capabilities in it now.
  • Fork a plugin you think gets 90% of the way there and create your own - it’s what I was forced to do with the Xano Connector, as I needed a LOT more than it could do natively (I don’t use the bubble data backend for anything but essential data such as logon sessions - most my backend data and APIs are in Xano and served by an extensive array of client-side API calls via my own plugin).
7

Yes it’s bizarre we need to use a plugin for browser storage/local data

Like… wouldn’t it reduce the load on their servers by an insane amount?

Unless… they don’t care about that since people will just pay for it ;–)

Neither of these are maintained, the developer was a popular community member who ragequit Bubble because of poor:

(and other reasons)

8

Yes, they’ve made some big changes from the funding round - flexbox being one.

I’m not saying 100% of the funding has been wasted just that it feels like they’ve spent most of it doing things:

  1. behind the scenes (unseen and unappreciated I’m sure)
  2. features that are pushed and then abandoned (like expressions)
  3. features that I’ve largely found useless (like the table element and ai page builder)

There’s so many easy wins and small bugbears that could be fixed and improved that would make the whole system much better - yet they never get addressed.

I guess bubble are focusing on the big picture and maybe it’ll all make sense some point in the future. For now though it just feels like a few years of spinning wheels.

1 Like
9

They are handled by the community because Bubble has failed to provide those features natively. I understand Bubble cannot natively cater for every functionality and make every user happy, but when one of the most widely used plugins is Fuzzy search, you know Bubble has failed you for a long time and they don’t care enough to change that.

No they shouldn’t.

  1. There are many plugins that are built poorly and Bubble has done nothing to indicate to new users how those plugins can cost them WU and performance. For example, Fuzzy search.

  2. I paid $120 for a premium plugin and the author of that plugin hasn’t logged onto the Bubble forum or responded to my support emails since August of last year. People are already at the mercy of Bubble when it comes to platform lock in, and the last thing app owners need is another layer of risk by building features based on a stranger’s plugin which could see maintenance and bug fixing disappear anytime.

  3. You failed to disclose you have an interest in building and selling plugins, so your reply cannot be taken seriously.

10

I’ll preface this by saying I’ve spent a lot of time talking to the Bubble team through the ambassador program and elsewhere the past few months which might give me a unique insight as a community member.

This isn’t at all true. As @boston85719 correctly points out, the responsive engine came after, returning data from custom event, reusable element properties, significant to backend workflow efficiency (from 1 per second to 20-50) and schedule API workflow on a list.

Now, yes, small gains compared to what I’d like to be able to do, but we can’t all have what we want by yesterday.

It’s fairly well understood that Bubble has a lot of technical debt. They also have limited engineering resources - I infer that a team can only scale so fast.

Behind every user-facing feature update you see, there’s a lot going in from a platform side. For example, the upcoming database maintenance is likely a key part of them upgrading their database to permit faster operations in the future. On its own, that might sound disappointing, but that’s the kind of thing that permits features like more complex privacy rules, and more complex search constraints, for example. Add to that that every Bubble app is different, and almost every change can’t be a breaking change to protect all of the existing apps.

Any missing features are generally not due to a lack of desire, but the fact that not everything can happen at once.

That said, Bubble does have a habit of getting 80% of a release right, but screwing up the final 20%. That said, it’s getting better. Recently, an update allowed agencies to transfer apps without being removed. But, it still removed the agency user’s admin privileges :man_facepalming: They took that feedback and added the checkbox that allows us to keep admin rights on the app we transfer.

A small step, but it’s moving in the right direction.

1 Like
11

I agree that more can be done. However, Bubble is making an effort.

This feature was implemented as a response to a request I made on the forums. I chatted with the old PM on this feature. It’s been a great help!

1 Like
12

My plugin Better Uploader definitely does provide the feature you’re looking for. There is a learning curve, especially for developers who aren’t used to thinking about the different stages of uploading. I’ve taken the time to write extensive documentation as well. I’m in the process of creating a guides section to help new developers as well :slight_smile:

1 Like
13

I think the speed of features came at tremendous technical debt that they now have to fix behind the scenes

The “features” they’re building are just a front for the actual work that’s going on

14

The plugin landscape is a bit of a mess but it is a large part of what makes Bubble successful and relevant.

I feel your pain regards struggling with a poorly documented plugin.

3 Likes
15

I wish Bubble would improve the plugin building experience and features.

2 Likes
16

Unpopular opinion but all of these AI code builders are going to see the demise of bubble without a major pivot. You can’t keep flogging a dead horse.

I am sure there are smart people within Bubble analyzing usage metrics of users since the rise of such tools. I for one have not used Bubble at all in 2025 to update any existing and have rather spend time building full code apps I control and no worries about WUs or compatibilities or when streaming might finally be released or downtime.

The closed ecosystem, the WU price shift and the continuity to work on what feels like now, building in a 90s fashion (dreamweaver anyone?) just seems like bad business sense.

These other AI coding tools are iterating faster, they are innovating more and they are currently the worst versions that they will ever be. If alarm bells aren’t ringing in NYC, they should be.

1 Like
17

Would not say so loud anymore that Bubble is frontrunner when you see the pace of competitors like WeWeb and what Supabase is doing. It could very well be that for 80% of current Bubble customers the WeWeb and Supabase combo is already the better solution.

In one or two years we know for certain. Current focus is wrong to win the war I think. But we will see!

18

If you have build a chassis for a truck, it becomes hard to turn that truck into a smooth riding salon anytime soon.

In some cases, to stay relevant, you have to start over entirely. Use your knowledge of the market, the painpoints of development in 2025 and deep understanding of what you million of customers want to solve and deliver something new. Something so good that it will blow new entries out of the water before they get wet. Simply because you know the game better than anybody else and you have millions of customers to help you fine tune it.

Bubble was and still is in a beautiful position but I am afraid that every week they keep moving in their current direction, that position is turning in something ugly.

Hopefully the founders are still reading although they stopt long ago interacting with their customers.

19

@mitchbaylis is spot on at this. Lots of people are not aware of the VC game. This is how it works. Simply put, it is a pyramid game. First get the perception right and hope that bigger fish will step in before money runs out. For bigger cv’s 100 million is nothing. As soon as the big players believe there is merit and the market is moving in the right direction the billion number will get consideration. Before you know it, it will be a billionaire game and the current VC’s will make 30x their money. That’s the bigger game.

What mostly happens is that these VC’s invest in a few competitors as well. They believe in the NoCode market but have no idea who will win. So they put 10 million in Bubble, in FlutterFlow, in WeWeb and Builder. They don’t care about us as customers. They care about the total addressable market and that one or more of their portfolio companies will dominate it.

VC’s make or break companies. There isn’t much in between because of the dynamics. But in between there are a lot of companies that could have been very profitable with the VC money received when taken on another strategy. But VC’s don’t want it as it will loose them money because of the risk/reward model they use.

20

@fede.bubble might be worth having a read of the sentiment in this post… Would be good to get an official Bubble response to the themes/issues being raised in this thread.

After all, we are investing a lot more than just $ in Bubble (time/effort/platform decisions).