Migrating Bubble and Other No Code to Real Code

Going from a no code platform to custom written code is a bit like moving out of your parents house as a young adult.

At the cost of increased responsibility, the benefits are freedom, control, and opportunity.

You’re no longer held back by the limitations of your no code system in terms of features, as well as reliability or general platform risks.
Things don’t have to be “duck taped” together to try and make it work. This allows faster development velocity (with the right people¹.)
Lower hosting costs. Bubble is a platform on top of a cloud. SaaS companies have saved millions annually just going from cloud to self managed hosting.

Ultimately, the business case is made by whether you want to take your app seriously, grow it, and increase its value as an asset.

If you’re favorable to migrating, here are some of the technical aspects you may be pondering.

Code architecture

What should you convert your no code app to? You might have some custom JavaScript in your no code app already, so moving to a typical JavaScript full stack app architecture is one option.

The other options would be to choose the most advanced web framework options, like Ruby on Rails or Laravel. These frameworks have a large ecosystem of extensions, as well as a proven architecture for making apps of all kinds. Shopify and Twitter are some well known products that have used these frameworks.

Which way to go can be answered on a free discovery call regarding your apps specifics.

Data migration

The biggest concern you might have about moving to real code is replicating the data on your no code platform to the new one, so that users don’t face any challenges.

Many no code platforms offer data export functionality. These exports can be thoroughly tested prior to going live with the migration.

The migration period may involve a period of downtime for your app, in the single digit hours range.

Scalability, reliability, performance

At the time of writing, there have been consistent complaints about both the reliability and performance of no code platforms, particularly Bubble.

From the Bubble forum:

If you look at Bubble’s status page, there’s instability almost every day. Today, once again, my application is experiencing slowness and workflow actions are not being completed. Now, I’ve encountered an error while entering the editor.

Twitter:

have you ever wondered which apps were built by no-code tool @bubble?

follow these steps:

1) visit the app website.

2) if it doesn't load, then it was built by bubble.
— David Bressler 📊 (@bresslertweets) May 8, 2024

When you own your own app, reliability can be engineered into the product with fault tolerance and multiple servers (in different data centers) ready to take over.

You aren’t at the whim of what a platform is doing behind the scenes that can take your app down, like what’s happening with Bubble.

Conserving existing work

If there are things about the no code app that are worth keeping, they should be. These can include any integrations or custom APIs that were coded.

The overall UX can usually be conserved, perhaps with a refresh of the UI.

Maintenance and additional features

After your project is converted, how will you handle additional development? Connecting with a competent developer that fits in your budget will be necessary.

Trouble with this may have been why you moved to no code in the first place.

All businesses grow based on the quality of talent available to them. I can help you solve this problem properly this time.

You need a broad generalist, who has worked on all parts of web systems. Someone who has worked with entrepreneurs and startups, and are one themselves. Not those used to working at big tech companies where everything is much more siloed and less is expected from each individual. ↩