Bubble vs Adalo, Glide & Softr
Bubble vs Adalo vs Glide vs Softr: a straight four-way comparison
Pricing and limits checked on September 2026
Adalo, Glide & Softr vs Bubble
Adalo, Glide & Softr vs Bubble at a glance.
The nine dimensions that decide whether a platform survives its first year of real users. Same rows on every comparison, so you can read them side by side.
Pricing model
Usage — Workload Units
~$0.30 per 1k WUs on paid tiers
Flat plans (+ meters)
Softr users/records · Glide credits · Adalo flat tiers
What you pay for as you grow
App activity (WUs)
Busier app = higher bill
Users, records, credits
Different axis per tool; all climb with scale
Data ceiling
~50k sorted-search cap
Lists degrade well before that
~2k–100k, tool-dependent
Adalo ~2k · Glide 25k rows · Softr 100k/app
Custom logic depth
Full visual backend
Deepest logic of the four
App-layer logic only
Softr front-end · Glide/Adalo shallow workflows
Mobile output
Responsive web + PWA
Native only in Adalo
Adalo native · Glide/Softr PWA only
Code export
None
None
Data exports; the app never does
Hosting control
Bubble cloud (shared AWS)
Each vendor's cloud
No self-host, no region choice on any
Vendor lock-in
High
High (Softr moderate)
Softr keeps data in your source; UI/logic locked on all
Who it suits
Customer-facing web apps
Self-contained products with their own DB
Simpler, narrower jobs
Adalo mobile · Glide internal · Softr portals
Where Bubble hits its ceiling
Where Bubble hits its ceiling.
The four limits that end serious Bubble projects, made specific to this comparison. Each one is sourced.
Workload-Unit billing scales with activity
$0.30 / 1k WUBubble meters app activity as Workload Units, around $0.30 per 1,000 WUs above your allowance, so a busy app costs more regardless of revenue. The trio bills differently — Softr on users and records, Glide on credits, Adalo on flat tiers — but every one of the four ties cost to scale in a way you don't fully control.
MajorSources: [4]Zero code ownership
No exportBubble has no source-code export, and neither do Adalo, Glide, or Softr in any meaningful sense — you can take your data out, but not a working application. For all four, leaving means rebuilding somewhere else. It's the shared wall that makes this a four-way tie on the one axis that matters most for a product you plan to keep.
BlockerSources: [5]300-second server-workflow timeout
300sBubble kills a server workflow at 300 seconds, so long imports and syncs must be chunked. Adalo, Glide, and Softr are shallower still on server-side processing — Softr pushes it to the connected source entirely — so heavy background work isn't any of their strengths.
MinorSources: [4]Search-performance cliff around 50k records
~50k rowsBubble's sorted searches cap near 50,000 records. That's actually the highest ceiling in this group: Adalo degrades past ~2,000 records per collection and Glide's standard tables cap at 25,000 rows. Softr can reach 100,000 per app but only by inheriting its data source's own limits.
MajorSources: [4]
Where Adalo, Glide & Softr hits its ceiling
Where Adalo, Glide & Softr hits its ceiling.
The real, researched limits on Adalo, Glide & Softr — not generic ones. If a limit matters to your app, it's here.
Three tools, three different data walls
2k / 25k / 100kThe most concrete difference between them is where each stops scaling. Adalo's internal database degrades past roughly 2,000–10,000 records per collection because it loads list items into device memory. Glide's standard tables cap at 25,000 rows (Big Tables reach ~10M but lose computed-column power). Softr allows up to 100,000 records per app but inherits the limit of the Airtable or Sheets source underneath. Pick by the wall you'll hit first.
None of them export a working app
Adalo and Glide let you export your data as CSV; Softr keeps your data in your own connected source. But in all three cases the application itself — pages, logic, permissions, design — is locked to the vendor's cloud and can't be taken out as code. On the ownership axis they land in the same place as Bubble: your data is portable, your product is not.
Each is built for a narrower job than Bubble
These aren't three interchangeable Bubble clones. Adalo is a mobile-first app builder, best for a simple native app. Glide is strongest as an internal tool over a spreadsheet. Softr is a front end for a client portal or membership site on existing data. Ask them to be a full customer-facing product with deep logic and they run out of room faster than Bubble does.
The mobile story splits the group
Only Adalo publishes genuine native iOS and Android apps (though with no code you can own). Glide and Softr output PWAs, not native app-store builds under your brand. Bubble is responsive web plus a wrapper. If installable native is a hard requirement, Adalo is the pick in this group, and a real mobile build is the pick beyond it.
MinorSources: [3]
Pricing compared
What each one costs when it stops being a demo.
The sticker price rarely decides it. What matters is the axis your bill grows along once real users arrive.
Pricing checked on September 2026. Vendors change plans often — verify before you commit.
Bubble
from ~$32/mo- Billing model
- Usage-metered Workload Units on top of a plan tier
- What drives cost up
- Workload Units consumed by app activity
Includes a WU allowance; overage ~$0.30 per 1,000 WUs. Hardest of the four to forecast, but the most capable per dollar for a real app.
Adalo, Glide & Softr
~$25–$36/mo entry- Billing model
- Flat monthly plans, metered differently per tool
- What drives cost up
- Softr users/records · Glide credits · Adalo flat tiers
Softr Basic ~$25/mo, Glide Basic $25/mo (credits), Adalo Starter ~$36/mo. All three are more predictable than Bubble, and all three raise caps rather than meter raw usage.
What happens at scale
For a small, narrow job the trio is usually cheaper and easier to predict than Bubble. For a growing customer-facing product Bubble stretches furthest of the four before breaking — but all four are renting the app, and the cost of the eventual rebuild is the number that actually matters.
Which one should you choose
The honest pick-this-if split.
Pick Bubble if…
- You need one self-contained, customer-facing app with its own database and real logic.
- Your data will grow past a few thousand records and you want the highest ceiling of the four.
- You'd rather have one platform than assemble a tool plus an external data source.
- You're validating a full product, not a portal, dashboard, or simple mobile app.
Pick Adalo, Glide & Softr if…
- Adalo: you want a simple native iOS/Android app fast and don't need code ownership.
- Glide: you're building an internal tool or dashboard on a spreadsheet you already keep.
- Softr: you want a client portal or membership site on top of existing Airtable/Sheets data.
- You want flat, predictable pricing more than raw capability or scale headroom.
Original cost curve
The four-way ceiling matrix, in one place
No single competitor page shows all four walls side by side, so here it is. On raw data ceiling, Bubble (~50k sorted) beats the trio (Adalo ~2k, Glide 25k standard, Softr 100k but source-bound). On code ownership, all four score zero — none exports a working app. On native mobile, only Adalo qualifies. On predictable pricing, the trio wins; on capability per dollar for a real product, Bubble does. Whichever you pick, the honest exit is the same: a database and an app layer you actually own.
- Bubble sorted search
- ~50k
- Glide standard rows
- 25k
- Adalo record cliff
- ~2k
- Apps you can export
- 0 of 4
When neither is the answer
When the honest answer is code you own.
All four are the same bet in the end: you rent the app and you can't take it with you. Adalo, Glide, and Softr each do one job well and hit a data wall early; Bubble does more and lasts longer but still locks the code. The moment your product has real users, real data, and years ahead of it, the deciding question stops being which of the four and becomes whether you own what you've built. A rebuild in code you own — a real database, an app layer you control, hosting you choose — is the version that outlives any of them.
Frequently asked
Adalo, Glide & Softr vs Bubble — the questions buyers ask.
Straight from the People-Also-Ask box on the live search results. Answers grounded in the sources cited on this page.
- Q01Bubble vs Adalo vs Glide vs Softr — which should I actually pick?
- Sort by the job. Adalo for a simple native mobile app, Glide for an internal tool on a spreadsheet, Softr for a client portal on Airtable, Bubble for a self-contained customer-facing web app with real logic. Bubble is the most capable and has the highest data ceiling of the four; the other three are simpler, cheaper, and hit their walls sooner.
- Q02Which of the four can I get my code out of?
- None of them, in the way that matters. Adalo and Glide export your data as CSV; Softr keeps your data in your own connected source; Bubble exports data but no code. In every case the application itself is locked to the vendor. If owning a working codebase is the goal, all four eventually point at a rebuild in real code.
- Q03Which one handles the most data before it breaks?
- Bubble, at roughly 50,000 records on sorted searches. Softr can reach 100,000 records per app but only if its underlying Airtable or Sheets source can. Glide's standard tables cap at 25,000 rows, and Adalo degrades noticeably past about 2,000 records per collection. For a data-heavy product, all four are worth sizing carefully before you commit.
- Q04Which is cheapest, and does that hold as I grow?
- The trio is cheaper and more predictable to start — Softr and Glide from ~$25/mo, Adalo from ~$36/mo — versus Bubble's ~$32/mo plus Workload-Unit metering. But cheap-to-start tools get expensive or simply stop fitting once you scale, so the real number is what the eventual rebuild costs, not this month's plan.
- Q05Can any of them publish a real native mobile app?
- Only Adalo publishes genuine native iOS and Android apps, though without code you can own. Glide and Softr produce PWAs, not native app-store builds under your brand, and Bubble is responsive web plus a wrapper. If installable native is non-negotiable, Adalo is the pick within this group and a real mobile build is the pick beyond it.
Sources
Every figure, traced to a primary source.
The numbered references in the body link here. We cite vendor pricing pages, official docs, and named reporting — dated where the document is dated, so the page can be re-audited each quarter.
- [01]Softr — choosing a data source, record limits per plan
Softr Docsdocs.softr.io
- [02]Glide Tables — row limits (standard vs Big Tables)
Glide Docsglideapps.com
- [03]Adalo — optimize app performance (record/list limits)
Adalo Helphelp.adalo.com
- [04]Understanding Workload — WU billing, timeouts, and limits
Bubble Group Inc.manual.bubble.io
- [05]Bubble manual — platform capabilities and limits
Bubble Group Inc.manual.bubble.io
Outgrowing Adalo, Glide & Softr or Bubble?
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Or see fixed-price migration packages and why Bubble feels broken.