Bubble Problems & Issues

In April 2023 Bubble moved from capacity-based plans to workload units (WU). The announcement thread passed 2,000 replies and some users reported bills jumping several times over, such as from about $126 to $800 a month. Bubble said 83% of paying apps would see under a $50/month change and offered an 18-month legacy period.

Plans include a fixed WU allowance (50K Free, 175K Starter, 250K Growth, 500K Team); beyond that you either buy workload tiers ($26-$539/month) or pay overages at $0.30 per 1,000 WU. Searches, database writes, backend workflows and API calls all consume WU, so costs grow with traffic and with inefficient builds.

Bubble decides how many WU each of its 12 activity types costs, and users say they cannot estimate monthly usage before launch. Capterra reviewers note you 'can be surprised' by the bill, and forum users with unoptimized apps reported millions of WU in a week.

The Free plan has 50K WU, 0.5 GB storage, a 200-entry database limit across dev and live, no custom domain and no live mobile version. It is for learning only; launching needs Starter at $59/month billed annually.

Slow page loads and repeating groups are among the most common forum topics. Large lists, unconstrained searches, many repeating groups on one page and big images are the usual causes; performance generally needs expert optimization on bigger projects.

Bubble does not export your app's source code, so leaving means rebuilding the front end and workflows elsewhere. Users who migrated off Bubble cite lock-in plus fear of future price hikes; some move the backend to Xano first to reduce dependence.

Reviewers on Capterra and review blogs repeatedly say Bubble takes weeks to learn, especially workflows, data types and privacy rules. Even developers report its conventions take time to click.

Forum threads report scheduled API workflows that appear in logs but never run their actions, and long loops failing with 'Operation timed out -- app too busy'. There is no built-in alert when a backend workflow dies mid-run.

Because Bubble hosts every app, platform incidents take customer apps offline. Mid-2026 incidents included an editor and app outage (June 30), a login failure after a bad deployment (July 7) and a load balancer issue lasting about six hours (July 13).

The API Connector's generic 'There was an issue setting up your call' message hides the real HTTP error. Causes range from bad headers and malformed JSON bodies to occasional Bubble-side bugs that cleared on their own.

Bubble's native mobile builder is newer and forum users report builds timing out, builds missing from TestFlight and push-notification capability errors. Most fixes involve App Store Connect settings rather than Bubble itself, which confuses non-technical builders.

Users report being blocked from deploying with 'Behind Live' messages, failed branch merges and forced syncs that overwrote development work. Branches are only on Growth and above, and Starter has basic version control.

Data that shows in development often disappears in live because privacy rules or roles block searches and fields, or because live has its own database. Misconfigured privacy rules are also the most common Bubble security gap, a frequent audit topic.