Design, UI, UX, Insights, Website Examples
Webflow Vs. Bubble (2024 Comparison)
Let’s dig into the differences and similarities between Webflow and Bubble in this detailed comparison review
The No-Code website-building revolution has introduced us to remarkable software for building apps, websites, and web apps without traditional coding. Two standout platforms in this movement are Webflow and Bubble. People often wonder, especially when starting their No Code journey, which one to choose: Webflow vs Bubble? As a Webflow development agency, we’re here to provide insights into their strengths and weaknesses, helping you make an informed decision. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced developer, our goal is to offer valuable guidance.
We will focus on features, as well as other critical aspects such as compatibility, end goals, and specific project requirements.
Now, let’s delve into a comprehensive comparison of Webflow vs Bubble, highlighting their unique characteristics.
Article Overview:
We’ll start with a brief overview of the tools.
Webflow Overview
When it comes to building websites, Webflow shines with its user-friendly interface that’s perfect for beginners and experts alike. Unlike Bubble, which leans more towards complex app development, Webflow focuses on helping users design visually stunning websites effortlessly.
It packs a punch with features like built-in online store tools, SEO helpers, and a simple content management system.
👍 Pros:
- Lots of features like online store tools, SEO helpers, and a handy content manager.
- Easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface that even beginners can handle.
- Round-the-clock support through live chat, email, and phone calls, so you’re never left stranded.
- Loads of customization options including cool animations, interactive elements, and layout choices to make your site stand out.
- Content management tools are robust, making it a hit with developers of all skill levels.
- You can add extra features through plugins to make your site even better.
👎 Cons:
- Some of the advanced features might take a bit of learning for beginners.
- The free plan has some restrictions, such as a maximum of 1,000 monthly visitors.
- While it’s great for websites, it might not be the best choice for building super complex apps compared to platforms like Bubble.
Bubble Overview
Bubble is a platform for creating advanced web applications with custom features. It’s usually a top choice for projects that call for complexity.
Learning the platform might take a bit more effort to get the hang of, especially for beginners, however, its visual programming language offers an easier path compared to traditional coding. With Bubble, you have the freedom to customize your code extensively to match your exact needs.
👍 Pros
- Great for building complex web applications with advanced features.
- Visual programming language makes learning easier, especially for those new to coding.
- Offers a high level of control for custom code.
- Comes packed with features like database management, user systems, and integrations with external services.
- Plenty of plugins are available, along with robust workflows, allowing for highly customized functionalities.
👎 Cons:
- Can be challenging to get started with, particularly for beginners.
- Projects may require more time and effort due to their complexity.
- Pricing plans might not be suitable for everyone’s budget.
- While it excels at complex web applications, Bubble might not be the best fit for simpler website projects.
Webflow vs Bubble Key Comparisons
In this part of the review, we’ll directly compare Webflow and Bubble, looking at things like how easy they are to use, what features they offer, how much they cost, what other tools they can connect with, and more.
1. Ease of Use
Comparing how easy it is to use Webflow and Bubble is like comparing apples and oranges. Both platforms let you create websites and apps without needing to know how to code. But when it comes to simplicity and beginner-friendliness, they have their own unique flavors. Let’s see which one is a smoother ride for newcomers.
🎓 Webflow Ease of Use
As we mentioned, Webflow has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, for easy website design and development. However, it may not match Bubble’s flexibility due to its visual programming language. While it’s user-friendly for basic sites, more complex projects in Webflow might pose a steeper learning curve.
The heart of Webflow is its Webflow Designer tool, your go-to for crafting, refining, and managing websites. Of course, as an alternative, you can use Webflow Editor by adding “?edit” to your site URL for direct content editing and CMS item management.
For mastering the platform, Webflow University provides a huge toolshed of resources like documents, e-books, videos, and tutorials. These are suitable for all skill levels, as they cover everything from basic HTML and CSS to advanced techniques such as more complex animations.
In addition, Webflow University has popular courses, including the Webflow Masterclass by Flux Academy and Webflow 101 for web design and development in the platform.
Highlights:
- Intuitive drag-and-drop interface for website design
- Webflow Designer tool provides comprehensive website development capabilities
- Webflow Editor allows for on-site content editing and CMS item management
- Webflow University offers a range of resources including documents, e-books, videos, and tutorials from basic HTML and CSS to advanced animations and interactions
🎓 Bubble Ease of Use
Bubble gives you a visual programming interface that’s flexible and customizable. However, it might feel a bit overwhelming for those looking for simplicity, especially for basic website projects.
For learning, Bubble provides e-books, manuals, documents, and boot camps. These boot camps are digital programs designed for beginners, guiding them through Bubble’s platform step by step.
In addition to these resources, Bubble’s documentation and support are available in multiple languages, which helps build a diverse user community through forums and online discussions.
Initial impressions of the Bubble interface might be a bit confusing, requiring some time to get used to. While design comes more naturally, embracing a developer mindset early on is very important if you wish to master the tool.
Bubble’s app assistant is a handy feature, that guides users through the app-building process and helps them with initial setup and design choices.
Highlights:
- Flexible and customizable visual programming interface
- Learning resources including e-books, manuals, documents, and boot camps
- Documentation and support available in multiple languages
- The initial interface may feel confusing but becomes more intuitive with time
- The app assistant feature helps the app-building process
2. Design Flexibility and Tools Comparison
In this part, we’ll compare how Webflow and Bubble fare in terms of flexibility for designers and the tools they provide. Both platforms offer a lot of freedom in design, but Bubble gives you a tad more control over the code underneath, giving it a slight edge.
🛠️ Designing in Webflow
Webflow gives users powerful tools to design their websites just the way they want. The main ones are the Webflow Designer and Webflow Editor, each serving a different purpose.
- Webflow Designer: you can insert various web page elements like text, images, buttons, and forms.
- Webflow Editor: This tool is more for website owners and managers who want to add or change content without touching any code.
- Components: With this feature, designers can create and reuse design elements across multiple pages for consistency.
- Navigator: This tool gives you a hierarchical overview of elements, so you can organize and select elements within the project.
- Pages: This feature lets you manage and design individual pages, including the setup of interactions and transitions.
- The CMS: The system allows you to build and manage dynamic content such as blog posts, products, and templates.
Webflow Templates
Webflow offers over 2,000 templates available, covering different industries, so you’ll have plenty of options to choose from. You can filter these templates by popularity, category, price, style, language, feature, and type, making it easy to find the right one.
All Webflow templates come with extensive customization options:
- Users can tweak colors, fonts, layouts, animations, and more to match their preferences.
- Content such as text, images, videos, forms, and other elements can be easily added to customize the templates further.
- All templates are responsive by default
🛠️ Designing in Bubble
Bubble offers a user-friendly interface where you can start with a blank canvas and easily add or remove elements like text, images, and buttons using drag-and-drop. Customizing your apps can become trickier as they become more complex.
In the left menu, you’ll find:
- Design: This is where you visually design your app’s interface by adding and arranging elements like text, buttons, and forms.
- Workflows: Here, you set up how your app behaves when users interact with it, like what happens when they click a button or submit data.
- Data: Manage your app’s database by creating data types, defining fields, and adding records to store information.
- Styles: Control how your app looks by setting custom styles for elements like fonts, colors, and spacing.
While Bubble does support animations and interactions, it might not have as many features as Webflow in this department.
In terms of responsiveness, making your app responsive in Bubble might also require more manual work in comparison to Webflow.
Bubble Templates:
While Bubble lets you customize, it might not always result in designs as attractive as those in Webflow, known for its great-looking designs. However, Bubble’s templates still offer lots of options.
These templates focus more on web apps like marketplace apps and social media platforms. You can choose from 903 templates made by other Bubble users. But keep in mind, that these might not always fit perfectly for your app’s needs.
3. Data Management (CMS Capabilities)
When it comes to handling data, Bubble outperforms Webflow. While Webflow’s CMS helps manage content and data, it doesn’t offer the robust features of a full-fledged database management system. On the other hand, Bubble shines in this aspect, providing advanced tools for managing databases. Let’s break this down.
🎮 Managing Data in Webflow
Webflow offers several powerful features for managing data directly within its platform.
- Edit Live Websites Directly: Webflow’s website editor allows you to manage and update content directly from your live website without needing to access the back-end.
- Visual Editor: It lets you design content directly on the page. This means you can see exactly how your content will look once published, instead of having to preview pages from the dashboard.
- Content Filters: You can display content conditionally by adding filters, ensuring only specific content is shown to users.
- Real-Time Collaboration: Webflow enables real-time collaboration by granting access to team members and clients to add and edit content. This feature facilitates seamless teamwork and client collaboration.
- Zapier Integration: Webflow integrates with Zapier, enabling the automation of workflows and integration with over 750 apps without requiring any code. This allows for streamlined processes and enhanced functionality.
In addition, Webflow Designer gives you the following features:
- Logic: You can set up user interactions and workflows based on events and actions to create dynamic user experiences.
- Users: Handle user authentication, registration, and access control to ensure secure user management.
- E-commerce: This functionality lets you manage products, shopping carts, and payment processing for online stores.
- Apps: Integrate third-party services to extend your website’s functionality and enhance user experience.
- Assets: You can upload and manage media files like images, videos, and documents for efficient content management.
- Settings: Configure project settings including SEO, custom code, and domains to optimize site performance.
- Site Activity: Track project changes and actions for effective team collaboration and monitoring.
🎮 Managing Data in Bubble
Bubble excels in this category, offering a wide array of capabilities:
- Powerful Workflow and User Management: Bubble provides powerful tools for managing workflows and user interactions.
- Front-end and Back-end Events: You can trigger actions both on the front-end and back-end of your application.
- Advanced Database Functionalities: Bubble offers a great range of database functionalities for more complex data structures and operations.
- Suitability for Conditional Situations and API Integration: Bubble is well-suited for handling conditional situations and connecting with external APIs or back-end events, making it versatile for various data management tasks.
Bubble’s strong data management capabilities make it ideal for complex web applications and projects that require extensive data handling. Some specific features offered by Bubble include:
- Integration with Data Services: Bubble integrates with various services that require data integration.
- Customizable Features: Bubble allows developers to customize their applications to specific requirements and functionalities.
- Survey Data Processing: Bubble provides tools for processing survey data, enabling efficient collection, storage, and analysis of survey responses within your application.
- Data Import from Existing Services: You can easily import data from existing services into your Bubble application.
- SEO Management: You can customize SEO with custom code, however, Bubble has fewer SEO features than Webflow.
- Collaboration Tools: Bubble provides collaboration features such as version control, simultaneous work on different application elements, role-specific permissions, and access management capabilities.
4. Pricing
Each platform offers various options suitable to different budgets and project requirements. Webflow provides plans for websites, workspaces, and eCommerce, while Bubble offers four pricing tiers starting at $29 per month.
💲 Webflow Pricing
Webflow provides users with two primary types of plans: site plans and workspaces.
Site plans are focused on hosting, covering both standard marketing websites and e-commerce sites.
- The Basic Plan starts at $14 per month and includes hosting for a standard marketing website.
- The e-commerce plans start at $29 per month, offering hosting for an e-commerce website with 500 items and a 2% transaction fee. More advanced plans are available, reaching up to $212 per month to accommodate larger e-commerce requirements.
Workspace plans for designers and developers have customizable options for both in-house teams and freelancers/agencies, featuring bespoke pricing and features.
💲 Bubble Pricing
Bubble pricing starts at $29 per month, offering four different plans. However, the free version of Bubble comes with certain restrictions, including limitations on frontend performance, server location in the United States, absence of native app exports, and the inability to use APIs.
- Personal plan: starts at $29 per month (billed annually) or $32 per month (billed monthly), offers additional features.
- Professional plan: starts at $119 per month (billed annually) or $134 per month (billed monthly), providing additional resources and capabilities.
Webflow vs Bubble: Use Cases
Lastly, let’s look at specific situations where each platform shines. This way, you can pick the right tool for your project based on what you need.
Design-Centric Websites, Portfolios and Blogs
Webflow is excellent for creating visually stunning websites, landing pages, portfolios, and blogs. Its user-friendly tools and customizable templates make it perfect for designing responsive sites without needing to code.
Webflow is especially handy for building landing pages, as it offers a variety of templates and has a built-in CMS; easy to set up A/B; and all templates are responsive by default.
Both Bubble and Webflow can handle e-commerce sites, but the right choice depends on what you need.
🎨 Real Webflow Websites Examples
Rahel & Ron Food Studio loves to share their cooking passion via their Webflow blog website. They craft recipes with a rustic charm, prioritizing wholesome ingredients and shunning excessive photo editing for authenticity. They’ve customized their blog design using the Persona template and added personalized touches.
Sage Mountainside offers a unique blend of natural splendor, comfortable living, and stunning mountain views, all while providing easy access to year-round outdoor activities. Their Webflow real estate website has engaging parallax scrolling, attractive design elements, and a modern broken grid layout.
Beyond is a venture studio specialized in virtual world building, Unreal Engine development, and collaboration. Their Webflow portfolio website showcases the platform’s capabilities with scrolling animations, overlapping elements holographic effects, motion typography, and complex animations.
Rogue and Rosy runs an online store where you can find delicious alcohol-infused jam. This colorful and eye-catching Webflow e-commerce website sports cool effects as you scroll, product photos are used creatively in the design, and attention-grabbing animations.
🎨 Real Bubble Websites Examples
Will Ericksson is a software developer with a sleek and straightforward website using the no-code platform Bubble. It perfectly reflects his brand and expertise. His single-page design is easy to navigate and provides all the necessary information clearly and concisely.
Complex Web Apps and Data-Driven Projects
Webflow is also frequently used by developers to turn their attractive designs into functional code. They can then export these designs and add the required features. So, yes, it’s possible to create a web app and host it with Webflow.
Bubble, however, is your go-to platform for building complex web apps and projects that rely heavily on data. It offers powerful features and customization options, letting you create sophisticated web applications without needing to know how to code.
📱 Webflow App Examples
Flow is a platform built with Webflow, where you can easily buy, exchange, and sell digital goods in a decentralized manner. It’s designed to be user-friendly, fast, and private. Essentially, it’s a marketplace for NFTs and other digital assets, powered by blockchain technology.
📱 Bubble App Examples
TicketRev is a Bubble app where fans bid on event tickets. Sellers can accept bids instantly. The platform, built on Bubble, makes buying tickets easy. It suggests bid ranges for fairness. When a bid is accepted, TicketRev handles discreet sales and instant payments.
Cerebro‘s platform features a global player database, gathering stats from various competitions. Coaches can quickly find players to fit specific roles/skills in just 60 seconds. Players can track their performance and compare it with others.
Allergy Hero simplifies allergy management in schools. It’s developed on Bubble as an easy solution for parents and schools to handle allergy and asthma information efficiently.
The platform features an offline-accessible student dashboard, organizing children with allergies by attendance days, classrooms, and triggers. Schools can easily access student profiles and care plans, while the platform automates medication reminders and offers a secure incident tracking form.
Workello is a platform that helps companies find top-notch writers quickly and easily. With their automated dashboard, content managers can assess candidates, administer tests, conduct interviews, and make offers all in one place. Built on Bubble, their app helps with the hiring process, saving time and effort for businesses.
Alrighty, folks, that’s a wrap!
To sum up, both Webflow and Bubble offer powerful solutions for building without code, but they cater to different needs. Webflow is great for creating visually impressive websites and landing pages, while Bubble is better suited for developing complex web applications and managing data.
Consider what you’re trying to achieve. If you need advanced features and data management for your web app, Bubble is the way to go. But if you want to quickly create stunning websites, Webflow is the better choice.
Ultimately, the decision boils down to whether you’re building a site or a web app. Choose the platform that aligns best with your project goals and needs.
Hey, before you go, don’t forget to check out our other awesome articles on UI/UX design! We’ve got loads of tips and inspiration to help you create stunning designs that will blow your mind.