I wanted to share a quick insight that’s helped me ship faster and cleaner apps and avoid hidden issues down the road.
The way you structure your database in Bubble can either unlock smooth development or quietly sabotage your app as it grows.
When I first started, I underestimated how crucial clear data relationships and lean field design were. Over time, I realized:
It’s better to use Option Sets than static text fields (especially for roles, statuses, types).
Avoid storing everything in one massive data type break things down into reusable and scalable chunks.
If a field doesn’t help with filtering/search/display it may not belong in the database.
And don’t forget: Privacy Rules are just as important as the fields themselves.
Once I started planning my database first (even on paper) before building, my workflows became cleaner, page loads faster, and my logic easier to debug.
Anyone else have that “aha” moment with Bubble’s database?
Would love to hear your best structuring tips too
Glad you had the ‘ah ha’ moment. I see many clients that have a database setup that isn’t very good. Although it helps them get off the ground, there is a lot of work to clean it up. Some are better off starting again from scratch.
Using Option Sets with rich attributes like color, images, and message blurbs is such a smart approach especially for something like a loyalty card where consistency and performance really matter. I love how you’re leveraging them beyond just basic labels turning them into dynamic, design-friendly data blocks. Super efficient.
Thanks for sharing that example really insightful. Curious, do you ever nest option sets or use them for user-facing logic as well?
Absolutely agree that early “just get it working” phase is great for momentum, but it can create long-term tech debt if the database isn’t well thought out. I’ve seen the same pattern: what starts as a quick setup often becomes a bottleneck when scaling or integrating new features.
Sometimes, starting fresh really is the cleaner path forward especially when the core data relationships weren’t defined clearly from the start. Appreciate you sharing that it’s a good reminder that thoughtful foundations pay off down the road
I don’t have any that require nesting, as far as Bubble’s definition of nesting.
I do use a lot of user-facing logic.
All my nav links are in an option set. I have attributes like ‘user role required’, ‘logged in only’, images, etc.
I also have a couple of dropdowns that are populated by option sets that affect conditional visibility, as well as a couple of workflows triggered by an option set.
The thing about Bubble DB is that while it lacks the flexibility of SQL (which is what Bubble DB runs on AFAIK) it does allow each app to hold 1000 data types. I have started taking advantage of this by creating datatypes for quick searches, joins and address pointers.
Just need to ensure your syncing mechanisms are in place.
It’s just the whole “Satellite Data Type” @petter coined way back. Acts like a lighter version of a larger datatype you run searches on if privacy rules can’t help you reduce the returned data.
You can even have fields that where you join 2 values to compact search constraints. Lots of nifty SQL like stuff you can get out of it.
I do something similar - I have a datatype I call ‘searchtext’, which has a field of type text that is a list. In that field I save the names and ingredients of all the publicly created recipes and ingedients in my cocktail app, in a JSON structure (the JSON format allows me to have key for ‘Type’ i.e. RecipeName or IngredientName, as well as UID (when applicable) which makes it easier to filter, and later to update). I then use this list as the dictionary for Fuzzy Search - forcing a very powerful search to only call up a single record. My search results are then just filtered from the Fuzzy’s top 5 word matches.
