Well, it’s always the same isn’t it? You are about to start a new project and you have a range of choices. And let’s be honest, you can’t really make a bad choice. It’s the ideas and the execution that is really going to matter.
But having said that. Why don’t we compare an alternative to Bubble. to help you decide for yourself?
While WordPress has long been a staple for creating websites, Bubble offers a modern, no-code solution that caters to a broader range of needs. We are going to highlight why we think Bubble is the better choice for modern web development.
1. Ease of Use
WordPress: WordPress is user-friendly for creating blogs and basic websites, thanks to its range of themes and plugins. However, more complex customisations often require coding knowledge in HTML, CSS, and PHP, which can be a hurdle for non-technical users.
It can get messy, and development can become a case of bending existing code (themes, plugins) to your will. Which is always risky when it comes future maintenance; such as upgrading the theme or plug in. When you do these upgrades you have to be careful not to lose your own changes.
Bubble: Bubble democratises web development with its intuitive no-code platform and really nice development environment (a web based IDE). The drag-and-drop interface allows anyone, regardless of technical expertise, to create complex web applications. With Bubble, you can build interactive and dynamic applications without writing a single line of code, making it accessible and efficient for all users.
You have a clean slate to begin with. So your ideas can be implemented fresh rather than changing someone else’s idea of how something should work.
2. Customization and Flexibility
WordPress: While WordPress offers extensive customisation through themes and plugins, it comes with limitations. Customising beyond these options often means coding, which can be restrictive and time-consuming for those without development skills.
As we said above, it can get messy. Another developer might come along and not understand your train of thought.
Bubble: Bubble excels in providing real flexibility for customised web applications. You can design unique interfaces and define intricate workflows without any limitations. This level of customisation is perfect for startups and businesses that need tailored solutions that standard CMS platforms cannot provide.
However, having a programmers mindset does help. Whilst you might be getting down to individual lines of code, you do need to be able to hold lots of abstract ideas in your head at any one time, and breakdown the most efficient flow of events in to workflows in the Bubble app.
Whilst you are starting from scratch, you can get something up and running very quickly. And related to Wordpress it will be clean and well organised.
3. Performance and Scalability
WordPress: Performance in WordPress largely depends on your hosting service and the optimisation of your themes and plugins. Scaling a WordPress site to handle high traffic can be challenging and often requires additional tools and skills and services to maintain performance.
It is not impossible though. If you are a DevOps types of person, you can easily handle it.
It can be done though. And you do have control over you do it. But, Wordpress is well known to hackers and they target domains looking for standard backdoors to exploit Wordpress weaknesses. So you do need constant care.
Bubble: Bubble handles performance and scalability seamlessly through its cloud infrastructure, automatically adjusting resources as your application grows. This built-in scalability ensures that your application can handle increased traffic and complexity without the need for additional optimisation or third-party services.
If you get Bubble’s dedicated hosting (which is very expensive) you are able to scale and monitor your usage with some influence. However, the standard hosting does give you this flexibility. But it is not something you control directly. Which can be annoying if you are used to scaling your own apps.
But, the Bubble platform is SOC2/3. And it does have a good data security model, so if you get that right, you will have secure data.
Learn how Orzo Blue can help you build and use technology for the benefit of your business.
4. E-commerce Capabilities
WordPress: WordPress, with WooCommerce, is a popular choice for e-commerce, providing extensive features and numerous extensions for product management and payment processing. However, it can become cumbersome and complex with too many plugins.
Bubble: While Bubble doesn’t have a dedicated e-commerce plugin like WooCommerce, it allows you to build custom e-commerce solutions tailored to your specific needs. With Bubble, you can integrate payment gateways such as Stripe (as you can with Wordpress) and design unique e-commerce workflows that suit your business perfectly, without the bloat of unnecessary features.
With Bubble, being able to create your own workflow and order of events is s big plu. Especially so if you start integrating directly with payment APIs, rather than using the plugins.
5. Community and Support
WordPress: WordPress benefits from a large, active community with extensive documentation and forums. However, finding specific help can sometimes be overwhelming due to the sheer volume of information and varying quality of third-party plugins and themes.
Bubble: Bubble’s rapidly growing community is highly focused on building web applications, offering targeted support and resources. While its ecosystem is not as vast as WordPress's, the quality and relevance of support from the Bubble community (the forum is really good) and its dedicated team make it easier to find specific solutions to your problems. You can also find communities on Reddit, and whole stack of other places. Bubble themselves have just put all the places you can collaborate together on their own community hub.
6. Cost
WordPress: WordPress itself is free, but costs can add up with premium themes, plugins, and reliable hosting services. These additional costs can become significant, especially as you scale your website’s functionality and performance.
You can keep this within your budget to begin with. but over time you will need DevOps skills or help. You may end up with a lot to think about, and you need to maintain Wordpress to keep it up to date.
Bubble: Bubble’s pricing is largely fixed but does have an element of variable pricing based around usage. Packages include hosting, database, and scalability. The fixed monthly costs are essentially for the tools and infrastructure, and the variable costs are for consumption over and above the amount given to you with your monthly package. This means you can start low cost while you test the market.
While the initial cost may seem higher than basic WordPress hosting, the cost grows with the popularity of your app. And because it covers all services it can be more cost effective in the long run.
The key with Bubble, is about getting ideas together quickly and getting feedback from the market.
You can leave then everything to Bubble an their team to manage infrastructure, meaning you can concentrate on your product and your business.
Conclusion
Why Bubble is the Better Choice:
No-Code Development: Bubble’s no-code platform empowers anyone to build complex web applications, and it provides, up to a point, non-technical users a tool they can create apps with.
Unlimited Customisation: With Bubble, you’re not constrained by pre-built themes and plugins. You can create exactly what your business needs, tailored to your unique requirements. You can of course create custom code in Wordpress using PHP. But I think by comparison to Bubble, you can achieve more with custom workflow Bubble, without needing to write actual code.
Seamless Scalability: Bubble’s cloud infrastructure ensures your application can grow with your business without the headaches of performance tuning and server management.
Cost-Effective: Bubble’s all-in-one pricing model simplifies budgeting and eliminates the need for multiple third-party services, providing a clear and predictable cost structure.
While WordPress remains a strong choice for content-driven websites, Bubble stands out as the superior platform for modern web development, offering flexibility, ease of use, and scalability.
For entrepreneurs looking to test out ideas and get market feedback, Bubble provides the tools to do so.
Learn more about how Orzo Blue can help you make use of technology for your business.
