How to Move from Bubble to a Custom-Built App

If you’ve ever had to explain to an investor why your backend logic lives inside a visual Bubble editor, you know it’s time to grow up. Or if your dev team can’t update a core workflow without tripping over three others. 

Maybe you’re focused on the whole “build an MVP” direction and are starting to notice that Bubble’s functionality limits the ability to deliver personalized experiences. Perhaps launching a new feature drags on for weeks due to plugin constraints, or your monthly Bubble support costs have quietly crept past your budget expectations. 

These are the moments when relying on a no-code platform like Bubble starts to chafe against business ambitions. Transitioning from Bubble to a custom-built application becomes a significant step for startups and businesses aiming to scale, optimize performance, or gain greater control over their tech stack. 

Bubble.io, a powerful no-code platform, enables the rapid development of web and mobile apps without requiring coding expertise; however, its proprietary nature and limitations in scalability, customization, and performance may prompt a move to custom code. This guide outlines the steps, considerations, and best practices for a smooth transition.

When You’ve Outgrown Bubble

Before diving into the process of transitioning from Bubble, it’s essential to recognize the signs that your app has outgrown the no-code platform’s capabilities. This decision often stems from your app’s growth trajectory, technical demands, and evolving business goals. The following key indicators highlight when it’s time to move to a custom-coded solution, each expanded with practical insights to guide your evaluation.

You’re handling >100K Users or Hit Performance Walls

• Bubble apps are designed to manage up to 100,000 daily active users effectively; however, beyond this threshold, performance can degrade, resulting in slow load times or crashes, especially during traffic spikes. This is great for a PoC or prototype, but it can lack something more. 

• Custom solutions, such as AWS Lambda or Kubernetes, enable dynamic scaling, addressing Bubble’s shared hosting constraints and ensuring reliability for large user bases.

• Consider using monitoring tools (e.g., New Relic) to quantify performance drops, which may signal the need for a backend overhaul.

You Spend More Time Debugging Visual Logic than Building Features

• Bubble’s drag-and-drop workflow editor, while intuitive for MVPs, becomes a bottleneck as complexity grows, with nested conditions or plugin conflicts requiring hours of troubleshooting rather than innovation.

• Developers report spending 30–50% of their time fixing visual logic bugs, a stark contrast to custom code’s event-driven efficiency.

• Transitioning allows focus on feature development, leveraging frameworks like Node.js to streamline logic and reduce maintenance overhead.

You Need Full Backend Control for AI/ML or Analytics

• Bubble’s plugin ecosystem (over 1,000 options) supports basic AI/ML integrations, but advanced models or real-time analytics require direct backend access, which Bubble restricts.

• Custom stacks with Python or Go offer the flexibility to deploy AI/ML pipelines, enabling features like predictive analytics or personalized recommendations beyond Bubble’s capabilities.

• This shift is critical for a competitive edge, as seen in case studies where startups like SynthFlow.ai moved to custom code for deeper AI control.

You’re Raising a Round, and Investors Want to See Codebase Ownership

• Investors often view Bubble’s proprietary nature as a red flag, lacking transparency and scalability proof, especially for Series A or B rounds where $1M+ valuations are at stake.

• Custom code provides full ownership, allowing hosting on preferred platforms (e.g., Azure, Google Cloud) and showcasing a reusable, investor-friendly codebase during due diligence.

• Exit strategies benefit too—acquirers prefer custom solutions over no-code lock-in, as noted in startup forums like Indie Hackers.

Evaluate your app’s current performance, user feedback, and future roadmap against these factors. Transitioning makes sense when Bubble’s limitations hinder growth, cost efficiency, or strategic goals, but it requires careful planning to balance short-term challenges with long-term benefits. This is especially true for MVP development, as removing inefficiencies earlier makes it easier to transition to a full-fledged product.

Discover How to Move from Bubble’s Limits

Struggling to scale your app beyond Bubble’s 100,000-user cap? Book a Scope Workshop for a fixed fee, and our expert team will provide a detailed playbook to guide you through the entire migration to a custom-built solution.

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Bubble vs. Custom-Built App: What Does the Math Say?

Transitioning from Bubble to a custom-built app involves significant upfront investment, but the long-term financial and operational benefits can outweigh the costs of staying with a no-code platform. 

To help you decide, let’s break down the numbers, comparing the ongoing expenses of maintaining a Bubble app with the initial and recurring costs of a custom solution, and calculating when the return on investment (ROI) balances out. These figures are based on typical scenarios for a mid-sized app with growing needs.

Bubble: Ongoing Costs

• Subscription Fees: At the Team plan ($349/month as of 2025), the annual cost is $349 × 12 = $4,188/year, covering up to 250,000 API calls and 100 collaborators, making it suitable for a scaling app.

• Custom Hacks and Freelancer Hours: Adding custom plugins or workflows often requires freelance support. Assuming 10 hours/month at $75/hour (a mid-range rate), this adds $750/month or $9,000/year, bringing the total to $13,188/year.

• Hidden Costs: Performance optimization or additional user seats may push costs higher (e.g., $599/month for the Enterprise plan), but we’ll use the Team plan as a baseline for a growing app.

Custom App: Initial and Ongoing Costs

• One-Time Migration Cost: The cost of an MVP, including complete migration, design, development, and MVP testing with core features, typically ranges from $20,000 to $40,000. For a mid-sized app, estimate $30,000 one-time, based on 200–300 hours at $100–$150/hour.

• Cloud Hosting Costs: After migration, hosting on AWS or Heroku with basic scaling (e.g., 1–2 instances, 1 GB RAM) costs approximately $50–$150 per month. Assuming efficient use, estimate <$100/month or $1,200/year.

• Maintenance: Ongoing developer support (e.g., 5 hours/month at $100/hour) adds $500/month or $6,000/year, totaling $7,200/year after the initial build.

ROI Break-Even Point

• Total Cost Comparison:

  • Year 1 (Bubble): $13,188.

  • Year 1 (Custom): $30,000 (migration) + $7,200 (maintenance) = $37,200.

  • Year 2 (Bubble): $13,188.

  • Year 2 (Custom): $7,200.

• Break-Even Calculation: The custom app’s higher initial cost ($37,200) is offset when cumulative Bubble costs ($13,188 × 2 = $26,376 after 2 years) approach the custom total. With Year 3 Bubble costs at $39,564, break-even occurs around 9–10 months after migration, assuming steady usage.

• Long-Term Savings: Beyond 12 months, the custom app saves approximately $6,000/year ($13,188 - $7,200), with potential reductions as cloud costs optimize.

Sticking with Bubble totals $13,188/year, escalating with scale, while a custom app requires a $30,000 one-time investment + <$100/month in cloud costs, breaking even in ~9 months. After that, full control, lower costs, and better performance position you for growth, making the switch a strategic move for apps outgrowing no-code limits.

Here are the numbers in the form of a table for a better understanding of the financial differences between Bubble-based and custom apps.

After reaching the break-even point, a custom solution delivers greater performance, lower annual costs, and full ownership over the codebase. This makes it a strategic move for teams aiming to scale efficiently and maintain control over their technology stack.

How a Growing AI Startup Scaled Beyond Bubble with a Custom App

Struggling to scale your Bubble app? You’re not alone. The Client, an AI-powered platform for recording and analyzing government meetings, launched quickly on Bubble. But as their ambitions grew to cover 50 state legislatures and beyond, Bubble’s limitations—laggy performance, messy workflows, and skyrocketing costs—held them back.

Here’s how the Client broke free from Bubble, slashed costs, boosted reliability, and built a platform ready for massive scale. If you’re wondering how to move from no-code to a custom app, this case study has your playbook.

Why Bubble Fell Short: The Breaking Point

Bubble was the Client’s MVP hero, enabling rapid development of a platform that transcribed meetings, searched topics, and sent user notifications. But as usage spiked, the cracks became dealbreakers:

• Sluggish Performance: Bubble’s visual workflows bogged down, delaying real-time transcriptions and searches.

• Tangled Architecture: Tightly coupled front-end, back-end, and database in Bubble made scaling or debugging a nightmare.

• Cost Creep: Heavy reliance on third-party APIs (OpenAI Whisper, Twilio) and Bubble’s pricing drained budgets, with a team of 10 freelance developers adding even more.

• Scraper Struggles: Custom web scrapers for meeting schedules clashed with Bubble’s limitations, causing frequent failures.

• No Ownership: The Client’s team couldn’t optimize infrastructure or plan a long-term roadmap without full control.

Sound like your app? It was time for the Client to level up.

The Game Plan: From Bubble to Custom in 8 Weeks

Partnering with DBB Software, the Client kicked off with a Technical Audit and Engineering Design phase, delivering a System Design Document within 10 days. The result? A clear, phased migration plan that:

• Slashed Costs: Replaced Bubble and Heroku with AWS, reducing the cost of hosting by 40% and optimizing API usage.

• Optimized dev team: Reduced the team size from 10 freelance developers to 3 dedicated experts.

• Unified the Stack: Designed a modular architecture for real-time AI transcription and scalable search.

• Minimized Downtime: Kept Bubble running during development to ensure a seamless user transition.

What Custom Code Delivered: A Platform Rebuilt to Win

By moving to a custom stack, the Client unlocked capabilities that Bubble could only dream of:

1. Scalability on Demand: Swapped Bubble’s shared hosting for AWS (Node.js, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch).

2. Lightning-Fast Performance: Custom APIs, caching (Redis), and direct ElasticSearch queries aimed at cutting response times by 50%, speeding up real-time searches and notifications.

3. AI-Powered Precision: Integrated ElasticSearch for advanced Boolean and contextual searches to enable users to pinpoint phrases like “TSA budget” across thousands of transcripts.

4. Slick Admin Control: A custom admin panel (built with Strapi) replaced Bubble’s clunky interface, streamlining user management, geo assignments, and monitoring.

What We Did to Migrate the Bubble App to a Custom Solution

To execute the transition, our team conducted a full technical audit as part of the Scope Workshop, developed a custom architecture, updated CI/CD processes, and replaced Bubble with AWS infrastructure. Details on what a typical migration entails are explored further in the article.

The Payoff: A Platform Ready for Prime Time

The Client’s custom app isn’t just faster and cheaper—it’s a foundation for growth, ready for advanced AI features like LLM-powered search. With a simple Scope Workshop, we were able to instantly reduce labor costs from 10 freelancers to 3 dedicated developers and started building a scalable foundation for the client’s platform growth while maintaining the required productivity.

Ready to Ditch Bubble? Get Your Free Migration Audit Today

Ready to scale? Let’s break down your Bubble app and build a roadmap to a custom solution that will include a full tech audit of your Bubble setup, a phased migration plan tailored to your goals, and a cost breakdown.

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Your 8-Step Plan to Migrate from Bubble to a Custom App

This approach was used to migrate a Bubble app to a custom solution in the previously mentioned project. It offers a streamlined approach to transition your Bubble app to a custom-built solution, minimizing disruption and accelerating growth. 

This 8-step plan provides a streamlined approach to transform your Bubble app into a custom-built solution, minimizing disruption and accelerating growth by addressing technical, operational, and user needs. Follow these steps to navigate the migration process effectively for your specific app.

1. Assess Your Bubble App

• Document key features, workflows, and integrations using Bubble’s visual editor.

• Identify performance bottlenecks and plugin limitations through logs and reviews.

• Export data via Bubble’s API and verify its integrity to prepare for the transition.

2. Define Custom App Requirements and Tech Stack

• Establish goals (e.g., 200,000 users, 30% faster load times) based on your business objectives.

• Select a suitable tech stack with a backend, database, and frontend framework.

• Plan mobile compatibility, budget, and timeline to meet your business needs.

3. Build Your Team

• Recruit specialists (e.g., frontend, backend developers) via job platforms or agencies, or hire a dedicated professional team to handle the task.

• Leverage Bubble expertise to ensure a smooth knowledge transfer.

4. Design for Scalability

• Plan a flexible architecture to support future growth and adaptability, such as AWS ECS with S3 for storage, SQS for task queues, and middleware to decouple Bubble’s components.

• Incorporate performance optimization techniques from the outset.

• Ensure the design aligns with your app’s long-term technical requirements, so consider planning a modular architecture to support future scalability.

5. Rebuild Core Features

• Prioritize essential features and launch a minimum viable product (MVP) efficiently.

• Recreate UI/UX to maintain user familiarity, using Bubble as a reference.

• Test all components, like test workflows, APIs, and integrations, to confirm they meet performance expectations.

6. Test Thoroughly

• Set up a staging environment to mimic real-world usage.

• Conduct integration and load tests to validate functionality.

• Compare results against Bubble to ensure improvements.

7. Roll Out Smoothly

• Operate parallel systems, syncing data between Bubble and the new app.

• Migrate users gradually, providing clear communication to minimize disruption, and start with admins, ensuring clear communication to ease the transition.

• Phase out Bubble using DNS redirection after achieving full parity with the custom app.

8. Optimize and Refine with CI/CD

• Enhance development workflows with automated testing and deployment.

• Adjust costs by optimizing resource use and third-party services.

• Continuously monitor and refine the app to ensure ongoing success.

Leave Bubble Behind and Scale Properly

Frustrated by Bubble’s slow performance, locked-in workflows, and limited ground for growth? Book a call with our Business Development Advisor to audit your app and migrate it to a scalable custom app.

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What You Risk by Staying on the Bubble?

Sticking with Bubble might seem convenient, but it comes with growing risks that could hinder your business’s future. While Bubble’s no-code platform has powered rapid development for startups and small apps, its limitations in scalability, cost management, and control pose significant threats as your app evolves.

You’ve Hit a Growth Ceiling, and It’s Holding You Back

• You’re Hitting the User Cap: Bubble caps at around 100,000 daily active users before performance lags, risking downtime or slow load times as your user base expands beyond this threshold.

• You’re Slowing Down Because of Data Bottlenecks: Large datasets or complex queries can overwhelm Bubble’s built-in database, leading to inefficiencies that could deter users as of mid-2025’s high-traffic demands.

• You Can’t Scale When You Need To: Reliance on Bubble’s shared AWS hosting limits your ability to dynamically scale resources, leaving you vulnerable during traffic spikes or seasonal peaks.

You’re Paying More Than You Think

• You’re Spending Big on Subscriptions: With Bubble’s 2025 pricing at $29/month (Starter) to $349/month (Team), and potential Enterprise jumps to $599/month, costs can spiral as your app scales, straining budgets.

• You’re Relying on Freelancers to Patch the Gaps: Custom plugins or freelancer fixes, averaging $750/month for 10 hours at $75/hour, add to the financial load without long-term value.

• You’re Missing Out on Smarter Cost Models: Staying on Bubble forfeits the opportunity to adopt pay-as-you-go cloud models (e.g., AWS), which could save thousands annually compared to fixed-tier pricing.

You’ve Lost Control of Your Own Product

• You Don’t Own the Code: Bubble’s non-exportable code traps your app in its ecosystem, risking obsolescence if the platform changes direction or raises prices abruptly.

• You’re Limited by What You Can Build: The plugin ecosystem (over 1,000 options) restricts unique features like advanced AI or IoT integrations, capping innovation as market needs evolve in 2025.

• You’re Dependent on Third Parties: Heavy reliance on Bubble’s infrastructure and plugins reduces your ability to tailor security or integrations, exposing you to external vulnerabilities.

You’re Falling Behind Competitors

• You’re Too Slow to Innovate: Bubble’s roadmap may not keep pace with cutting-edge technologies (e.g., blockchain, real-time AI), putting you at a competitive disadvantage as of June 2025.

• You’re Scaring Off Investors: A proprietary Bubble app may deter investors seeking codebase ownership and scalability proof, critical for funding rounds this year.

• Your Exit Strategies are Limited: Remaining on the Bubble complicates future sales or acquisitions, as buyers prefer custom solutions with transparent, reusable code over no-code lock-in.

Staying on Bubble risks stunting your app’s growth, inflating costs, and limiting strategic options in a competitive 2025 landscape. Assessing these risks against your current performance and future goals can signal the urgency to migrate to a custom-built app, leveraging the insights shared throughout this guide.

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