Anyone who’s ever looked into the fast-growing world of No Code knows these two big headliners. In the right corner, we have Bubble, the New York “giants” (not the sports team), who have truly pioneered the gold mine of possibilities that is No Code, and have developed a platform that is now a reference in the field. In the left corner, now, we have the up and comers at Adalo, whose development tools and marketplace have been rising to the top, and are today one of Bubble’s biggest competitors.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, that like in many battles between two giants like that (Pepsi and Coke, XBox or Playstation…), it’s just a matter of personal opinion. In that case, it might be a little more complicated than that; which is why, at NoxCod, we wanted to give you a quick summary of each of those two competitors strengths and weaknesses, so that you can see for yourself and pick the one that is best suited to your ideas and needs. Parlons d'Adalo VS Bubble...
ADALO
Let’s start off with a presentation of our challenger, Adalo. This platform was created with one goal in mind: to make no code development as visual and intuitive as possible, while providing the tools to adapt your content to the ever-changing and ever-growing mobile app market. To let you know what these guys are all about, let’s get a quick overview of Adalo’s features.
Pros
Extremely easy to learn
it’s graphical UI was designed to let you create and organize your app visually, simply by dragging and dropping components in the development area.
The Marketplace
Adalo offers a large panel of third-party developer components to integrate various features such as e-signature, QR code or map modules, that you can integrate directly into your app as needed.
Native export to mobile
Adalo offers its users the opportunity to natively export their apps to iOS and Android systems.
The price
Adalo offers a free membership, allowing you to test out the waters by creating apps with up to 50 rows of data. The Pro plan is reasonably priced at $50 a month, which includes publishing on Apple and Google Play Stores, as well as on a custom web domain. And for the larger projects, the Business plan, priced at $200 per month, offers 20Gb of data storage and a dedicated account manager to help you maintain your app.
Cons
Keep it simple
As a side effect to its simplicity of use, Adalo is not the best platform to build complex or content heavy apps.
No third-party authentication
As of yet, users of apps made with Adalo do not have the possibility to log in using their Facebook, Apple or Google accounts.
BUBBLE
Now, let’s have a look at the market leader, the “founding fathers” of modern No Code: the guys over at Bubble. Since its inception in 2012, Bubble has been endeavoring to spearpoint the industry, by always improving upon their platform to allow their users to build apps exactly how they envisioned them, no matter how complex. A quick look at what makes Bubble great:
Pros
Reliable and polyvalent
Bubble’s tried and true development tools have proved time and again that the apps created with Bubble are not only stable, but also as complex as you need them to be to complete your vision. Add to that a smart management of server and device resources, and you get the recipe that makes Bubble apps fast and sturdy.
Collaborative development
That’s right, with Bubble, you can work in real time with your team, create, improve and test your build as you go along. Bring up to 40 collaborators, assign them access rights and tasks, and start working!
On the following picture, the yellow cursor represents a co-worker, working in live on the same project.
Data tracking
Keep an eye on each and every cog in your machine, with real-time data feeds that you can link to various analytics and customer management services, to improve what can be improved and get a sense of your users’ needs.
Version control and backups
With Bubble, you can build, experiment and test new versions on private “frontends” of your site, deploy them instantaneously, and if you have a change of heart, roll back to any of your previous saved versions.
Cons
The price
While their "starter" offer is pretty cheap, at just $32 per month, Bubble's full range of capabilities is only unlocked with the $399 per month "Team" plan, which includes on-demand server capacity, priority support, 50GB of data storage, 20 concurrent development versions and 365 days of backups. The company also offers free plans, with Bubble branding and community support.
Versatile, but complex
Yes, you can do an astounding number of things with Bubble, but it’s easy to get lost in the dizzying amount of features and data. While Bubble is probably the most complete no-code platform around, its sheer size can be intimidating, and fully taming it requires time and effort. If only there was someone who could help aspiring no-coders get started… (check the bottom of this article).
As you have probably noticed by now, our two fighters, while not perfectly matched, both have their perks and shortcomings. To summarize, Adalo is better suited for beginners and smaller projects: it’s interface is easy to grasp, and anyone can build the mobile app they have in mind. Bubble on the other hand, will allow you to exploit the no-code technology to its full extent, and implement features that make your project complete and fully interactive. To each their own, as they say, and the no-code world is no exception!
And for those wishing to unlock the full potential of Bubble, Noxcod has prepared a little surprise: our Bubble Bootcamp! Whether you have a project in mind or just want to broaden your horizon in webapp design, our 3-week program is sure to give you the key to the world of no-code, and allow you to fulfill your development dreams!
