Choosing the Right Tool: Bubble vs Airtable for Building Custom Applications

Bubble.io and Airtable are two of the most popular low-code and no-code development app builder platforms available today. They both offer unique features and capabilities that can help businesses build custom applications and databases without any coding knowledge. In this article, we will compare Airtable vs Bubble to help you decide which platform is best for your needs.

Bubble.io Overview

Bubble.io is a cloud-based no-code tool that enables application development without any programming language. Bubble.io offers a drag-and-drop interface that allows users to design and build complex applications on the back-end with ease. With Bubble.io, users can create custom workflows and integrations, and automate their processes with built-in tools.

While Bubble.io offers a wide range of features, there are certain limitations to what can be achieved within the platform. Users have mentioned limitations in terms of database querying, performance optimization, complex conditional workflows, and more advanced backend functionality. These limitations can be challenging for users with specific or complex requirements.

Airtable Overview

Airtable is a no-code platform that allows users to create custom databases and applications without any coding knowledge. With Airtable, users can create complex databases with powerful workflows and integrations. Airtable also offers pre-built templates that make it easy to get started quickly.

Airtable‘s strength lies in its simplicity and ease of use, making it ideal for managing smaller to medium-sized datasets and simpler workflows. However, for more complex use cases or large-scale enterprise applications, Airtable may have limitations in terms of handling intricate data relationships, advanced querying, or complex calculations.

Comparing Features & Functionality

Bubble and Airtable are both popular platforms that offer powerful tools for building and managing web applications. While they share some similarities, they also have distinct features and functionalities. Let’s compare them:

1. Application Development: Bubble is primarily focused on visual, no-code application development. It allows users to build web applications using a drag-and-drop interface and a visual workflow builder. On the other hand, Airtable is more of a flexible spreadsheet-like database tool with a user-friendly interface that can be used to create custom solutions.
2. Data Management: Bubble offers a built-in database that allows you to store and manage data within your applications. It supports complex data relationships and offers features like data filtering, sorting, and querying. Airtable, on the other hand, is centered around data management. It provides a robust spreadsheet-like interface with support for various field types, data linking, and filtering capabilities.
3. Integration and APIs: Both platforms offer integration capabilities with external services and APIs. Bubble provides a plugin system that allows you to extend the functionality of your applications by integrating with popular services. Airtable also supports integrations through third-party tools like Zapier and offers a comprehensive RESTful API for programmatic access to your data.
4. Collaboration: Airtable excels in collaboration features, allowing multiple users to work on a project simultaneously, track changes, and comment on specific records or fields. Bubble offers collaboration features as well, but they are not as advanced as those of Airtable.
5. Customization and Design: Bubble provides a wide range of design and customization options to create visually appealing web applications. It offers responsive design features, pre-built templates, and the ability to create custom workflows and logic. Airtable focuses more on data presentation and provides limited customization options for the user interface.
6. Scaling and Deployment: Bubble allows you to deploy your applications on their cloud infrastructure, handling scaling and hosting for you. It also supports custom domain setup. Airtable is primarily used as a database tool and doesn’t provide direct deployment options. However, you can build applications using Airtable as a backend and deploy them separately.
7. Pricing: Both platforms offer free plans with limitations. Bubble has tiered pricing based on the number of application users, whereas Airtable offers different plans based on features and team size.

In summary, Bubble is geared toward no-code application development with visual design and workflow-building capabilities. It provides a comprehensive development environment. Airtable, on the other hand, is primarily focused on data management and collaboration. It offers a flexible and user-friendly spreadsheet-like interface for organizing and working with data. Your choice between the two would depend on your specific requirements, whether you prioritize application development or data management as your primary focus.

Comparing Pricing

Pricing is an important factor to consider when choosing a no-code platform.

Bubble.io offers a range of pricing plans that start at $29 per month for up to 175k workload units. Bubble.io also offers custom pricing for larger businesses with more complex needs.

Airtable offers a range of pricing plans that start at $10 per month for up to 5,000 records per base. Airtable also offers premium plans with additional features and capabilities.

Airtable‘s pricing structure may be a consideration for some users. As you scale up or require additional features, the cost of using Airtable can increase significantly. This is especially true for organizations or groups with many team members that require access to advanced features, such as custom-branded forms or enterprise-level support.

Comparing Support

Bubble and Airtable offer different support options. Bubble has a community forum, comprehensive documentation, video tutorials, and email support for paid plans. Airtable provides a help center, video tutorials, email support for paid plans, and enterprise support. Bubble‘s community forum and extensive documentation are notable, while Airtable offers a strong help center and specialized enterprise support.

The Best Option: Knack

Knack is a web-based platform that allows businesses to create custom web apps without requiring coding or technical expertise. With Knack, you can build everything from simple contact forms to complex databases and workflow systems, all through an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface – allowing much more customization, support, and functionality than Airtable or Caspio.

Here are some of the reasons why Knack is the best choice for no-code app development:

1. Pricing: Knack’s starter package begins at just $49 per month for unlimited users. Knack also offers enterprise subscriptions that are customized to each company to ensure return-on-investment is shown. Because of this, Knack truly is the best option for all companies – from startups and small businesses all the way up to corporations. For governments and healthcare professionals, Knack’s GovCloud and HIPAA packages are perfect for protecting your data, staying secure, and complying with GDPR and SOC2 Type 2. For non-profits, Knack offers special discounted pricing.
2. User-friendly Interface: Knack’s drag-and-drop API makes it easy for users of all technical levels to create custom applications. You don’t need to know how to code or have extensive technical expertise to build custom applications with Knack.
3. Customer Support: Knack offers support through chat, email, a very large, active community forum, and regular weekly webinars. Users also have the option to set up consultations as needed. Knack also has an extensive YouTube library with tutorials. Plus, Knack also has a wide expert network that users can leverage if they want to expand their app, improve the design and branding, or have a custom template made.
4. Customization: Knack offers a high degree of customization, allowing you to create apps that meet your specific business needs. You can choose from a range of templates or start from scratch, and customize everything from the layout and design to the functionality and features.
5. Integrations: Knack offers seamless integration with other business applications through Zapier and Make. Some of the most popular integrations include Salesforce, MailChimp, Dropbox, Google Sheets, Slack, Microsoft 365 email, and Shopify. This makes it easy to add automation and streamline your business processes across your entire company.
6. Scalability: Knack is designed to grow with your business. You can start with a small project (es: a simple online database) and scale up (ex: a custom CRM) as needed, without having to rebuild your application from scratch.
7. Security: Knack takes security seriously, offering robust encryption and permission controls to protect your data, including multi-factor authentication. You can also choose to host your application on your own servers for additional security and control.
8. Cost-effectiveness: Knack’s pricing is affordable and scalable, making it a cost-effective solution for businesses of all sizes. You only pay for what you use, and there are no hidden fees or charges.

In conclusion, Knack is a powerful and user-friendly platform that makes it easy for businesses to create custom web applications without requiring extensive coding or technical expertise.

Knack vs Bubble

In Bubble.io builders are starting with a blank canvas for building out their apps. While this can be powerful for very advanced builders and coders, Bubble.io is often too complex for true citizen developers to get started quickly and drive value. For instance, there is no intuitive way to build easy connections with across different user page views, tables, and processes, and the process can take many months to learn to create even a rudimentary application. In this sense, organizations leveraging Bubble.io often need to hire a front-end developer to get the results vs using their in-house operations-oriented citizen developers.

One of the strengths of Knack is the ability to quickly spin up a front-end view out of the box, and configure it for different user groups and then offer a preview of what they will see in a WYSIWYG live app environment. Attempting this in Bubble.io often results in different presentation layer issues and is more difficult to move quickly without front end design tweaks and UX configuration changes that require a deeper Javascript, CSS, and HTML5 skillset. Overall Bubble.io is strong as a B2C true No Code platform for creating more advanced Facebook B2C experiences. Bubble.io is stronger for IT coders and developers with advanced front-end design skills to leverage the platform for spinning up B2C websites.

Knack on the other hand is purpose-built for more for B2B-focused organizations and use cases. Builders can leverage all-in-one simplicity so nontechnical citizen developers can in one click import .CSV files or other data sets, understand their table structure similar to a spreadsheet, and then use pre-built front-end components to get a valuable working app up and running in a matter of hours.

There is a higher level of screen consistency in Knack so that builders don’t have to worry about interacting with a particular field and changing the data structure of the application, while there are more customization options and more responsive design elementsinBubble.io, for most new users, that may increase the learning curve and adoption rates for B2B use cases. For example, Knack offers a much more simplified form-building experience, where citizen developers don’t have to build field by field and then do advanced field mapping and re-formatting.

Knack vs Airtable

Airtable strength is in depicting an easy to use online spreadsheet with advanced features. It is a powerful but is generally database and backend focused offering limited role based access controls. Most customers who want a robust front end experience in Airtable, will need to bolt on another tool that focuses on the online webapage UX and customer experience.  Separately,there is no way to link a sheet to another object since it isis designed as a flat large online table.

On one hand, similar to Airtable, Knack offers a very simple interface, with no developer required for building project management workflows and automation. However, since Airtable is built as an advanced online spreadsheet, it is limited in its capabilities for creating powerful connections between data tables like Knack.

Knack offers the best of both worlds. The Knack platform has both a simple front end UX for building live web pages and portal and internal tools. It also offers a back end no code database within the same platform so you do not need to procure, deploy, manage, maintain, or pay license fees for two different systems which promotes user adoption. The all in one Knack solution also includes more advanced access controls, and an elegant front-end user experience for customer/partner/member portal use cases to display data and interact with it.

Knack users can easily add a connection then create different personalized user views of how the data is available via the Knack Live app webpages instantaneously. For customer portal use cases, Knack customers don’t need to pay for another service to interact with the data. They can assemble and build a beautiful front end quickly and easily out of the box with componentized charts and graphs, and easily add CSS and HTML for a more custom branded experience to customize colors buttons and other externally facing web components. Knack offers a value based pricing model, with no additional charges for more app end users or builders. Simply pay by the record with no per app record limits or pay per user licenses.

Conclusion

BothBubble.io and Airtable are powerful no-code platforms that can help businesses streamline their workflows and automate their processes. When choosing a platform, it’s important to consider factors like features, pricing, and support. If you need a platform with a wide range of customization options and integrations,Bubble.io may be the best choice. If you need a user-friendly platform with pre-built templates and collaboration tools, Airtable may be the best choice. Ultimately, the best platform for your business will depend on your specific needs and requirements.