I think the biggest problem with this approach is at some point, they necessarily reach a level of complexity that it takes the same amount of time to learn how to use their "no-code" tools than it does to just learn how to code.
It seems like all the comments here are from non bubble users.<p>We have worked on over 20 client projects in the past 1.5 years using bubble.<p>Specialising exclusively in bubble now.<p>A way to describe the platform would be WordPress for Web Apps.<p>There was a census recently.
~75% clients are startup/MVPs
~25% SME making business tooling<p>Out client portfolio is similar.<p>I've hired fresh graduates in Pakistan, trained them in 2 weeks. And now have them working on a customer production app.<p>I've also taught bubble bootcamps. After 8 weeks of weekly 2 hour zoom sessions, I doubt you'll get much progress in a coded bootcamp. But these guys were building their app ideas. All sorts of backgrounds. Accountant. Art student. Podcast editor etc.<p>I have a client who needs a quick 2 week MVP. Done.
I have a client whose 40+ employees use bubble app daily across four counting. Core business tooling.<p>The four pieces needed for a web app are
Design
Logic
Data
Hosting.<p>Bubble combines all that and reduces the barrier to entry.<p>No need to make comments like the famous Dropbox comment. Why not just SSH sftp xyz.<p>NoCode is definitely rising. We have won bids against coding agencies due to cost/time. The competing coded agency suggested 3 months. I quoted 2 months.<p>The day rate is somewhat similar. The speed is much faster. Very much needed for MVPs<p>That being said. There are drawbacks. You can throw 30 software engineers and have a system and increase velocity that way. However, bubble/NoCode is more suited to small teams (afaict yet)<p>Feel free to ask me anything.<p>Bubble.io coach, bootcamp instructor, agency owner here. Bubble all day every day.<p>Email : hn@azkytech.com
I had to use this for a client project once (per their request) a few years ago and as a developer it was an absolute nightmare. But I guess it's not meant for developers...<p>There were so many quirks and limitations that I wouldn't ever recommend it to anyone. It's to app development what Macromedia Dreamweaver was to web development back in the day, except worse because you can't edit the code.<p>I don't want to be overly negative so I'll say that I do see value in it for those who have no technical skills or programming knowledge to create some sort of prototype, but that's about it.
Can someone help me understand the no-code movement and what supposedly has changed in the last few years?<p>I know Microsoft tried to allow non-developers to create apps without developers, and they have been trying for decades. But failed! They built an app that allowed you to drag and drop blocks, and they tried a visual query builder(not sure what the exact name was) for SQL. They added a workflow builder to SharePoint.<p>They all worked great during the marketing demos. But as soon as you had to execute a slightly complex process/workflow/idea, it broke. And that happens almost on day 2 after deployment. The only success they found in automation was by getting non-devs to learn development using VBA macros for MS Office.<p>How is the current suite of no-code apps different. How will they solve the problem with non-trivial tasks?
Some people here are giving examples of using Bubble a few years ago, and found it too limited to be useful. Have any <i>developers</i> here used it <i>recently</i>?<p>When I first looked at Zapier about 2.5 years ago, as a developer I found it limiting and just not useful compared to writing custom webhooks that I sometimes glued together with cron jobs, etc. But since late last year, Zapier has matured so much I am able to use it for almost every integration I need. It has probably saved me ~100 hours of development time in the past year alone.<p>I wonder if Bubble might have passed a similar threshold of utility, so that it is useful even to people who DO have good coding skills.
Having myself used some no/low-code tools (service-now, mendix, outsystems), I do think they are the future, but...
I think they suffer from their business model, which often aims complete vendor lock in to milk their customers as long as possible. This is currently their only way to earn back the hard invested money of developing such a tool.<p>We need a, open source, community driven, no-code tool.<p>Using existing tools I often suffered from these things:
- closed source.
- expensive monthly fees.
- Any apps build with it are not really property of the developer, but are intellectual property of the low code tool corp
- either bad ux ui or not horizontally or vertically scalable
- Datamodel, Algorithm or business logic can not really be extracted from the low code platform.
- You now need to become a specialist in this low code platform. These low code platforms outdate faster then the typical programming language.
- The best developers look down on it so you get "lesser" developers.
- If a feature is not available in the low code platform then you are stuck.
- If there is a real bug in the low code platform you are screwed because you now need to open a ticket, but the engineer looking at the ticket is more help-desk then engineer. The majority of tickets they solve are from dummies not understanding the platform and they assume you are one of them. Will take several months to convince them it was a bug and was never solved during the time I was on the project (2 years).
- You cannot run it on premise, unless you have deep pockets
- They have non or terrible git integration. Or other collaboration problems.
- Due to their dynamic nature are often slow in performance.
- Corps HR department runs a different low code platform then their finance department and now it becomes a political shit show.<p>Terrible situation when you grow beyond the low-code platform and need to move away from it.
I used to work for the client who bought a no-code solution all devs advised against. It was meant to make it so simple to write business logic that even non-technical BAs could do it. Nobody understood how it worked and the devs spent six months trying to make it work before business admitted it's useless.
Is Excel 'code'? If you answered 'No' considering cell formula expressions like cell references and arithmetic, does your answer change if you use functions? Flow control?<p>Automata are automata. But, ok, sure, I get it. That's too abstract for the intended consumer. So what we are selling as 'no-code' is something that can allow you to preserve your identity as not-a-coder. Hmm. Scratch seems to be the language that strikes me as something you could sell as 'not code'.<p>I've thought lately that 'Everyone Should Code' concepts didn't make sense. But maybe it does make sense -- if everyone uses computers to get their work done anyways, the "Here is how you can leverage your interaction with the computer to get your work done better/faster."
A friend launched his startup recently with a product development consultant who built 1.0 and a lot of 2.0 in Bubble, in just a few months. The iterative mindset is a big part of why they moved so quickly but my friend reports that the tools helped and meant he could contribute with a lot of direct text entry and view layout, if not logic building.<p>The consultant does a lot of internal app prototyping and initial development in Bubble for Wal-Mart corporate so I imagine app builders are doing some substantial land grabbing in other large enterprises with their raised money.
wtf they want people who know coffeescript <a href="https://bubble.io/job?jid=4377554002" rel="nofollow">https://bubble.io/job?jid=4377554002</a>
Ah, good ole CASE. It's back like mold every few years and this year it's hot and humid.<p>There are no video demos on their site for one simple reason: when you do find one on the YouTubes you'll see that it is <i>very much programming.</i> If you can create correct CRUD by dragging around "dynamic expressions" (yes, they're really called that), you could write them in TS.<p>As frosting on the cake, they offer gig workers to <i>no-code for you</i>! My father would make a comment here about wiping one's own ass.
I look at No-Code the same way I look at Canva — one can create powerful designs in Canva that were once the exclusive domain of expert photoshop/illustrator designers. It does not replace them but reduces the barriers to entry for others which is a fantastic thing! There are many ideas that can be set free and realized with No-Code platforms that otherwise wouldn’t due to the difficulty. I say this as a software engineer. No-code won’t necessarily replace us but it will elevate the game.
The market is comparable to Wix? Divi from wordpress?<p>Again, not sure how these companies last and compete where everyone else is learning how to code.<p>I can't foresee a mature product that is achievable without coding, at all. I always thought companies that uses those builders will, at some point, move out from MVP and hire some coders.<p>Well, I guess there're always market for everything.
No-code environments are “Duck Programming:”<p><a href="https://raganwald.com/2012/01/08/duck-programming.html" rel="nofollow">https://raganwald.com/2012/01/08/duck-programming.html</a><p>I’m much more interested in how they manage all the software engineering _around_ the low code than I am in the low code itself, e.g.<p><pre><code> - version control
- testing
- developing at scale
</code></pre>
Which is not to say that the low-code tooling for single developers or extremely small groups is not interesting and valuable in its own right. It’s just that this other stuff is even more interesting if a tool is to escape a small (but still incredibly valuable*) niche of making prototypes quickly.<p>———<p>* Way back when, some of us used Hypercard to do low-code prototypes and mockups of apps. It was absolutely a good tool for iterating quickly on working prototypes, and Bubble could be that with high-fidelity today.
What's the difference between no/low-code and just an application? Most of these just seem like a solidly built application that allows users to do complex things. MS Word is a no-code application to generate documents, Photoshop is a no-code application to generate images, Chrome is a no-code application to explore the web.<p>"no-code" just seems like a marketing term.
I wonder how long it will take until I see “must have 10+ years of X-low-code-solution experience” in job searches and cold calls/emails from recruiters<p>Personally, I think low code is a farce. It’s useful for prototyping but beyond that I wouldn’t use it in any production system.
Have they ever addressed what would happened to the app you build if their company disappear one day? It doesn't seem safe to build your system on Bubble or any SaaS for that matter unless you know the company will never go away e.g. Salesforce.
What's the next 10x technological innovation for no code? What would it take to remove programming from web development? Bubble seems excellent, but it is in a competitive field.
10 years ago I worked for a startup that wanted to exactly the same.
Basically it was a toolbox where you could add things such as a map, an image gallery, texts, documents.
It was back in the days where everyone wanted to have an app even if they didn't needed. For example restaurants.
The project failed, it was just way too complicated, both for the end user and the development of the project itself.
Also a lot of stuff was faked.
When some one would order the App, it would still be "Compiled" by a developer and "compiling" meant basically coding what the customer had ordered within 2 days.<p>Anyway, at least in their case you had access to the final source code.<p>EDIT: I just wanted to add that you are probably far better of if you hire a random guy from India on Fiverr to the app for you.
I am an optimist about low code platforms and apps. I think sufficiently patient people with a disposition for a bit of logic can successfully achieve solid work.<p>Recently I witnessed some friends get quite far by using a game engine called Unreal which allows people to use a “no code” alternative to C++ called Blueprints.<p>It can get a bit unwieldy when enough logic is created but if you’re disciplined about the diagramming etc it can be mitigated.
I used to work at a company which was doing "AWS Lambda" before AWS lambda was official and Bubble had just started. Unfortunately that company I worked at didn't make it through the journey - but Bubble did...and it's awesome for them. As a developer I tried Bubble and got frustrated but I can totally see how people that don't know too much about code can simply learn the platform and build ton of useful things with it.
Some can also make a living out of it. So that's good!
I also wanted to add that there's other nocode tools and then the "retool" startup that was here on HN a couple of times in the past....they branded themselves as No-code for enterprise?<p>The right tool in the right hands can be like a torch in a dark abyss. (But please don't bring a torch in a cave full of ignitable gas)
I am not expecting developers to welcome the new "No-code" movement. But eventually, it will happen. An app that's capable of building itself, supposed to be the next generation of building apps. Take a look at web development. It's revolutionary and changing fast. Users have more power than anytime before. More flexibility is being added every day with the rising of third parties services that make development faster and more reliable than ever. The question should be about complexity. How to manage the "no-code" complexity. Is it better for the user or it will add a new burden of learning? Does the no-code mean a special team to learn how to build without coding. Is it cheap, or hiring a specialist is better when it comes to fixing bugs and shipping new features.
Do these tools provide an "integration path"? For example, is there any of these tools written having in mind the fact that they will be replaced by a full fledged software if successful, and as such provide some "injection points" for manualky written software to be executed?<p>If yes, I can see that being reasonable as a solution to sliwly migrate from a no code software to a fully coded software.<p>I understand and appreciate the idea of prototyping without code, however this goes end in end with the reality that if adoption is big and you suddenly have to make something performant and it's impossible on the no code tool, you might have a big problem to do (write from scratch) with a tight timeline (performance exploding), potentially losing customers.
Credit to Bubble for raising such a large amount after years of hard work and dedication. I admire their tenacity, community and product but I don't agree with the sentiment 'make tech cofounders obsolete'. Why do you want to make a highly skilled individual obsolete?
I feel, in many ways, this sentimentalism is what negatively affects the no-code / low-code industry. We need developers and non-developers to work together, not make the other redundant.
I worked at a 'no code startup' for a few years in 2014. Here is how it goes.<p>1) Apple will throw out your apps quickly. They say it is a templated app. Our app at them time had 100k active installs. They basically shut down a portion of the appstore.<p>2) The web version of 'no code' is a sick world of godaddy guis and broken html.
The most basic point of these tools is that they offer as basic things as possible. and in this way they can reach a real customer base. tech people's comments on this are often just "useless". yes, I don't think it will work either, but they can find customers.
Yeah there is also stuff like ionic, even Vue has something like that with GUI. With stuff like this is great to prototype create a MPV. Machine generated code is hard for humane to debug, at some point, it will hit a limit that becomes harder and harder to debug and make changes.
their website is obnoxious on mobile. im trying to scroll down the page to see what they are about but it keeps focusing on the email sign up box which scrolls me back up to the top of the page and opens my keyboard. i guess ill have continue not knowing what bubble have to offer
If Bubble is not a bubble, a coder should be able to sit down and figure things out intuitively and start getting better results than they would busting out create-react-app, or their java spring framework backend. Wait, that's not that unbelievable!
I know I'm the old man screaming at the clouds here, but the biggest problem I see with this is that it leads to engineers being pushed to outcompete these systems in iteration speed, which is impossible.<p>An engineer might get the task to make some feature, and the manager goes and uses bubble to make it and sees it only takes an hour, the engineer sits there for 5 doing it, you can imagine the rest.<p>The engineer might take care to make the code maintainable, fast, and expandable for some other feature that is planned, but nobody up the chain of command cares about stuff like that.<p>It's the kind of thing that makes the developer's lives harder, the apps more bloated, all to get the features out faster to the users for a few years until it all breaks down and you have to rewrite it.<p>I'm not convinced. I read this entire thread, but I never see a real benefit for users or programmers, just managers who enjoy pumping up some metrics so they can advance their career.
Everything made from somebody else that you are supposed to configure in some way only works as long as you do things with it that were specifically thought of. This is true even for code, where you have a library or piece of whatever code that should do X, but you want to do X with a bit of Y, and you can't because the author didn't consider it. I don't want to be critical of Bubble specifically because I haven't tried it, but I do feel this is a very difficult task simply because it's hard to imagine all the things people might want to do. Whereas a programming language is just kind of a general purpose thing, that can do anything you want (with more work of course, and if you're able to). I see a need for this, but I'm curious how are they going to pull it off.
I really like Webflow and I think it's amazing for build marketing pages for startup but they lack features for CMS, Multilanguage and layout reutilization.<p>I hope Bubble will innovate on this.
I wish we had No-business solutions. Like you only have to write code and the business side of things is being solved for you by a script, just watch money flow into your account.
I think nocode won't compete with code but more with internal workflow and non-public apps. Basically what we do in Google Sheets to track internal company stuff atm.