Bubble
Build and launch web and mobile apps without writing code
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Ben Tossell

Bubble - Build a fully functional web app without any code

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Bubble is web development framework and a visual programming tool. It enables non-technical people to build production-ready web and mobile apps without code.

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Tara Reed
I'm a non-technical founder & I have been using Bubble for a while now. Built our MVP with it, started bringing in revenue, got into 500 Startups accelerator, & continue to build with Bubble! I've been documenting my experience building without code here --> http://bit.ly/1WISExa As a non-technical founder without a ton of money to spend, Bubble was the best option for me. Yes, I could hire developers, but when I started, I didn't have money to hire top talent. And as a non-technical person, there's nothing more difficult than managing so-so developers b/c you have no idea whether they're doing a good job or not! Hands down, Bubble was & continues to be the best option for us! Amazing work guys. Congrats on the success.
Emmanuel Straschnov
Bubble
Maker
@tarareed_ Thanks Tara :)
Konstantin Malov
@tarareed_ You will leave software developers out of work this way)
Emmanuel Straschnov
Bubble
Maker
Hi everyone, I'm Emmanuel, cofounder of Bubble with @jphaas1. We're excited to have it here! We started Bubble because we think that more people should be able to build things online, and the main bottleneck so far is learning how to code. So instead of teaching everyone how to code (which is great for educational purposes), we think we should rethink how people create software. So we came up with Bubble, a visual programming language that enables you to build apps (web apps for now, iOS is in beta) visually. The things you can build can be quite complex. A user did clone 90% of Twitter on Bubble. Marketplaces are very much what you can build on us. It does take time (we don't offer templates to keep flexibility); cloning Twitter took about 4 days, but it's still much faster to use than code. The learning curve is about 3 hours. And after this, we handle infrastructure, servers, etc! The vision is that you should only have to focus on your app's design and functionality, and we handle the lower level stuff. We'd love to hear your thoughts, and will be here to answer questions! Thanks for your support!!!
Romain Lacombe
@estraschnov congratulations on the launch! I have to say I admire the bold vision behind Bubble – I'm not sure we'll ever see a world where developing software happens without any code, but your product is making building products much more widely accessible. Congrats! One question: how do you see the impact of Bubble in the education sector?
Emmanuel Straschnov
Bubble
Maker
@rlacombe @estraschnov Well we're not saying we're going to replace all of software engineering and make it without code, but we're hoping to make that 80% of the tasks/apps that require code today won't in the future, so that engineers (the ones that code) can work on more fundamental stuff. To you question: it's something we haven't explored yet too much (mostly because of resources), but I see Bubble as an intermediate between Scratch and code, and so that could be a great tool to teach kids how to think in a programmatic way, thinking about flows, data structure, conditions, etc, while not having to worry too much for the syntax, with I think is 1) tedious 2) not for everyone
Shlok Vaidya
@estraschnov Big fan of this approach. Abstracting out first generation 'development' interfaces is a huge problem that gets in the way of adopting new tech - I've argued this about CAD and 3D Printing, but definitely code as well. Even if you can get, as you say, 80% of the way, there, that's that many more people building their own stuff, which is great for the ecosystem. One thing I'm looking for as this builds out, is integration into existing workflows - basically, how can someone, as a non-coder, 'apply code' into what I'm already doing (say, building out collateral in Photoshop), without having to think about if that functionality is code or not. Something along those lines - huge opportunity to you guys, but code becomes, for more and more people, just plumbing and not a functional skillset. I dunno, zooming out, what genuinely excites me about this approach is that it opens up - not in its current iteration, but someday - the opportunity for a kid in a slum to program something that solves a problem for him and his without having to know how to read, do math, code, or have anything more in his hand than an old Nokia brick.
Emmanuel Straschnov
Bubble
Maker
@shloky @estraschnov Yeah, that's exactly what we find exciting as well :) The way we want to do it is to enable coders to add elements, events, actions and data sources in Bubble, that would then have a visual interface that non coders can use (the Bubble editor). In fact, that's what we do internally, we build these bricks, but we'll open that to people at some point (as early as possible).
Marcell Almeida
@rlacombe @estraschnov I strong believe that this is the future of programming. Not sure how long it will take. But as something similar, but focused on games, you can see Construct 2 https://www.scirra.com/construct2
Joe Filcik
Awesome. Looks cool. Added it to my collection of "No Code Programing" apps -http://www.producthunt.com/@jfil... - :)
Emmanuel Straschnov
Bubble
Maker
@jfilcik That's awesome :)
Tom Söderlund
Weld
@jfilcik Great collection! Subscribed. /Tom (founder of Weld)
Paul Katsen
DemandRush
This video blew me away when I first saw it:
. Congrats @estraschnov on launch!
adam lagreca
My name is Adam, content strategist and PR coordinator at DigitalOcean. I met Emmanuel a couple of months ago and have been impressed by him and Josh ever since. They have worked their asses off to bootstrap their company and stay true to their vision; mainly, that programming and coding should be divorceable skill sets. And that we should all get on board with the idea of putting the power of software creation in more people's hands. The common perception of visual programming is that it can't be done, especially not as a broad-use-case solution. But Tara's story and ones like it confirm that Bubble is undoubtedly an empowering platform, and will only get better with time. The idea of abstracting away the underlying workings and intracacies of tedious processes is called "progress" – and it doesn't just happen in tech, but everywhere. Just like you don't need to have a deep understanding of how your car works to get you around, you don't need to have a deep understanding of the code underneath your design. Yes, the need for specialists (mechanics and engineers) remains. But Bubble will allow more people to program their own applications, while engineers will be held to a new standard. Their free time can be spent working on problems that haven't yet been solved, as opposed to re-inventing the wheel over and over for people who can't code. Investors and VCs are behind on this trend. Just as I believe in DigitalOcean's vision of abstracting away the complexities of web infrastructure, I believe in abstracting away the code that runs on top of that infrastructure. This is the future of tech: making things appear simpler and easier for the end user. With Bubble, the future is here. Big congrats to the founders! Well deserved. – A
Stedman Blake Hood
Jib
Congrats guys! I love that Bubble allows us to cut out a step in the development process. Previously, the Client communicated with the PM who communicated with the Developer. Now that the PM can use Bubble to build, there's a much tighter feedback loop -- improving the Client's experience. Check out www.AirDev.com -- a dev shop that does just this. I'm excited to see what other innovations Bubble gives rise to!
Vladimir Leytus
OnlyBots
@stedmanblake thanks for the shoutout! That's precisely what we're trying to do - use shorter iteration cycles to greatly speed-up the development process. Also, we're at www.airdev.co, unfortunately www.airdev.com was taken :)
Fred Rivett
Well done on the great launch guys, this definitely looks like a great tool for non-technical founders looking to prototype & MVP. For me though, as a front end developer, I immediately thought how will this work on mobile and responsively in general? Intrigued to hear how dragging an input here and another element there will translate when the screen real estate is smaller. As a result of challenges like this, I personally can't see something like this replacing hand-coded web apps from technical founders, as with front end frameworks like Foundation & Bootstrap & back end frameworks like Laravel Spark & Ruby on Rails the learning curve & time required is minimal and provides a better experience all round (or so I would imagine!). Possibly for first level MVP's but beyond that, I'd be surprised.
Kostas Xiradakis
@fredrivett nice question. Maybe they could offer different @media screen sizes to play with the UI a bit and fit things around. nice catch!
Fred Rivett
@andupotorac Nice, just had a quick flick through. Looks like a good start on a responsive website builder :)
Andu Potorac
Fodeli
@fredrivett I wouldn't call it a good start, but one of the best approaches. Why? Because right now there's only two approaches to responsiveness when it comes to site builders: complete freedom (readymag, wix), or restricted movement (weebly, yola, jimdo, most..). I exclude those where you can write your own code specifically to make this work (webydo, webflow). So they are a mix between the two: freedom (move it where you want) and they still create a responsive layout by the approach they have taken. It's genius and hasn't been done before. :)
Fred Rivett
@andupotorac Sure. I skipped through the video (its 30mins long) so I can't comment too much here. Looked like they're on the right tracks with it.
Manish Sahajwani
This looks amazing. Can you throw some light on your technology stack?
Emmanuel Straschnov
Bubble
Maker
@msahajwani Of course. We use a bunch of stuff, but in general, we're on node.js, use elasticsearch of applications' data, firebase for applications (the actual app you build in the editor) and use intensively coffeescript/jquery. Applications are rendered client side.
Manish Sahajwani
@estraschnov Thank you!
Mariana Salcido
@msahajwani I know it was long time ago but... Can I embed then on my website?
Emmanuel Straschnov
Bubble
Maker
@mariana_salcido @msahajwani Sorry just saw this. Well it's a question for your website, but with an iframe i don't wee why not.
Marcell Almeida
Awesome guys! This will surely help a lot of entrepreneurs to create MVP's real quick without the need of a developer.
Keith Crosley
GRUPZ Vacation Rental Calendars

Look: There’s no platform that can enable someone with no freaking clue about how to build an app to magically build one... But boy does Bubble come close.

I love visual/no-code/alterna-code environments and have worked on several of the most famous ones. Bubble is right up there.

I feel like this tool‘s positioning (“you don’t have to be a coder”) belies its true strength. It‘s GRRRREAAAT for those who would rather NOT code most stuff.

I do my best to help folks out in the forums at forum.bubble.is, but wish it had a StackExhange equivalent -- it’s that deep. Love it and wish it the best. You can build awesome stuff on Bubble, but (duh) prepare to learn some computer science In the process (this is a GOOD thing)...

Pros:

Somewhere between a rapid prototyping environment for an MVP and an amazing “no-code” app platform. Great for avoid-code folks!

Cons:

There’s no magic bullet for non-coder/developer types. But if u love visual programming as I do, it’s wonderful. Gateway drug to coding.

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