Bubble vs Softr vs Glide: building an internal tool or an MVP without code

Every young company reaches a point where a spreadsheet stops being enough. Orders are tracked in three tabs, a client wants a login to see their project, or a founder wants to test an idea with real users before paying for an engineering team.

No-code builders exist for that moment, and Bubble, Softr and Glide are three of the best known. They're often compared as if they did the same thing, and they don't. Bubble is closest to building a real web application. Softr puts an app, a portal or an internal tool on top of a database. Glide turns a spreadsheet into an app a team uses on the job.

This comparison looks at two common cases. The first is an internal tool for a team of ten. The second is a first version of a product, often called a minimum viable product or MVP, that outside users sign up for.

Bubble, Softr and Glide at a glance

Prices are the monthly rate on yearly billing, from each company's pricing page on the day we checked.^{⁠[1],[4],[6]}

What each one is built for

Bubble gives you a visual editor for pages, a database you design, and workflows that run when users click, sign up or pay. It's the most flexible of the three and the slowest to learn. You decide every data type, every privacy rule and every screen. Bubble also builds native iOS and Android apps on React Native, which share the same database and workflows as the web app.^⁠[1]

Softr starts from data. You connect a source such as Airtable, Google Sheets, HubSpot, Notion, Salesforce or a SQL database, or use Softr's own database, and arrange it into pages with lists, forms, charts and user logins.^⁠[4],[5] Permissions decide who sees which records, which is what makes it a good fit for client portals.

Glide also starts from data, and it's strongest on mobile. Apps work on any screen size, and Glide syncs data from Google Sheets, Airtable, Excel, SQL and other sources or keeps it in its own Glide Tables.^⁠[6] Glide's own examples lean toward operations, such as inventory, logistics, procurement and warehouse management, where people update records on the move.^⁠[7]

Glide has two products now

In August 2026 Glide launched GlideOS, a new AI-first platform built around agents that create and run apps.^⁠[8] It has its own plans, from $25 a month for 100 credits and two team members, with $50 Plus and $125 Pro plans above it. Plans are monthly for now.^⁠[7]

The original product is now Glide Classic, and Glide says its apps will keep working. The two don't share data, and there is no tool to move a Classic app to GlideOS.^⁠[7] This comparison uses Glide Classic, whose plans and limits are published in full.^⁠[6] If you're starting from scratch, try both before you commit to one.

What an internal tool for ten people costs

Take a ten-person company that wants a tool to track jobs, clients and stock. One founder builds it, and nine colleagues log in with their company email addresses.

On Softr, the founder is the builder, and builders can use the app without counting as users. The nine colleagues count as team users, because they share the builder's email domain. Softr Basic, at $19 a month, includes 5 team users, so this team needs Pro at $99 a month, which includes 10 team users and 50 client users, two builders, 500,000 records and 10,000 workflow actions a month.^⁠[4]

On Glide Classic, the cheaper Explorer and Maker plans are built for personal users, meaning people who sign in with an address such as Gmail or a school email. Glide says any email domain can sign in on Business and Enterprise. So a team on company email needs Business, at $199 a month billed yearly or $249 monthly. That includes 30 users, 10 editors, 5,000 updates and up to 100,000 rows, or 25,000 from a spreadsheet source, with extra users at $5 a month each on yearly billing.^⁠[6]

On Bubble, users aren't counted at all. Starter at $29 a month gives you a live app on your own domain and 175,000 workload units a month.^⁠[1] The catch is the build. You create the login, the roles and the privacy rules yourself, which takes longer than Softr's ready-made blocks.

What an MVP with outside users costs

Now take a founder testing a product with a few hundred outside users.

Bubble suits this best. Its plans don't charge per user, so the cost follows how hard the app works. Starter includes 175,000 workload units a month, Growth 250,000 with two editors at $119, and Team 500,000 with five editors at $349.^⁠[1] Bubble's workload covers database operations, workflows and web interactions. If an app runs past its allowance, you can pay overages or buy a workload tier. The smallest adds 200,000 units for $26 a month billed yearly.^⁠[1] If you turn overages off, the app goes offline once the included units run out.^⁠[2]

Softr counts every person who logs in. Client users are anyone outside the builders' email domain, and Pro includes 50 of them, Business 100. You can add more on Pro and above for a monthly charge.^⁠[4] That works for a client portal with a known list of customers. It gets expensive for a consumer product that hopes for thousands of sign-ups.

Glide Classic is cheapest here if your users sign in with personal addresses. Its Maker plan, at $49 a month billed yearly, allows unlimited personal users across three apps, with a custom domain and 500 updates a month. Updates count changes to data and syncs from outside sources such as Google Sheets. Data kept in Glide's own tables doesn't use them.^⁠[6] Past the allowance, each update costs 2 cents.

The limits that raise the bill

Each builder has one number to watch, and it's different on each.

On Bubble it's workload. Bubble's own advice is to start on the free plan and watch how your app uses it before choosing a paid plan. Bubble emails you when an app reaches 75% of its workload units and again at 100%.^⁠[1]

On Softr it's users first, then workflow actions. When a workspace reaches its monthly workflow limit, its workflows pause until the limit resets or you upgrade.^⁠[4]

On Glide Classic it's updates. An app that syncs a busy Google Sheet or writes data through integrations uses them quickly. Keeping data in Glide Tables avoids the charge.^⁠[6]

Leaving later

Bubble is direct about it. You own your app's design and your users' data, and Bubble owns the code underneath. Its apps can only run on Bubble and can't be exported as code. You can export data as CSV files or read it through Bubble's API, and Bubble can help export the design.^⁠[3] If you leave, you rebuild the logic.

Softr and Glide leave you in a better position if your data lives elsewhere. An app on top of Airtable, Google Sheets or a SQL database leaves that data where it was. Softr's own database imports CSV files and Airtable bases and has a public API.^⁠[5]

When to hire a developer instead

No-code is the right start for most internal tools and for testing whether anyone wants a product. It stops being the right answer at a few predictable points.

When the software is the product you sell. Investors and acquirers will ask who owns the code. On Bubble, the honest answer is that Bubble does.^⁠[3]

When the logic has to be right every time. Billing rules, payouts, anything that touches money or permissions across customers. Code can be covered by automated tests that run on every change. Visual workflows are harder to test the same way.

When usage costs start to rival a salary. Workload units, updates and per-user charges all grow with success. Once the monthly bill approaches the cost of a developer's time, the trade has turned.

When you need an integration the builder can't reach. Every builder has an API connector, and each has limits. If the product depends on an unusual system, code gets there sooner.

Our hiring abroad cost calculator shows what a developer costs in several countries, and our guide to hiring developers in India from a US company covers one common route.

Which one to pick

Choose Softr for an internal tool or a client portal on data you already keep in Airtable, Google Sheets or a CRM. Pro at $99 a month billed yearly covers a team of ten.

Choose Glide Classic if your team works from phones, the data lives in a spreadsheet, and you're happy with Business at $199 a month billed yearly. For a community or consumer app on personal email addresses, Maker at $49 is very good value.

Choose Bubble for an MVP with its own logic and outside users. Starter at $29 a month billed yearly is enough to launch, and the bill follows usage rather than headcount.

Whatever you build, connect it to the rest of your tools before you write any glue code by hand. Our comparison of Make, Zapier and Pabbly Connect covers the automation side, and the startup tech stack shows where an internal tool fits among the rest.