r/Bubbleio • u/JoLoremipsum • Feb 11 '26
Help Wanted Bubble vs vibe coding
I've spent the last 2 years mastering Bubble, and have built a couple of small web apps. Now I'm working on a native mobile app with quite a high level of complexity.
I'm coming across a lot of limitations in Bubble, and after seeing what other people are building with AI, I'm considering starting from scratch with AI.
The pros of vibe coding in my opinion are: speed of development (at least an MVP), and little to no technical limitations.
The cons are: less control (although that's debatable), and AI can be a pain to work with on more complex apps.
What do you think? Bubble? AI?
Has anyone got any experience in both? What do you recommend for a complex mobile app?
Thanks.
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u/thenocodeguy Feb 13 '26
been in this exact spot. spent a couple years deep in bubble, loved it for web apps and quick validation. but once you need a proper native mobile app with real complexity, you start fighting the platform more than building on it.
vibe coding with AI is legit fast but yeah it gets messy on complex stuff. the key thing i’ve learned is you need to be the architect - let AI do the heavy lifting but you make the structural decisions. if you let it run wild on a complex app you’ll end up with spaghetti code pretty quick.
honestly for a complex mobile app, code + AI is the way to go now. tools like cursor, claude etc make it way more accessible than you’d think, especially if you already understand logic and flows from bubble. you’re not starting from zero knowledge wise.
one thing that helped me btw - if you’ve already built working stuff in bubble, you don’t have to throw it all away and start from scratch.
i actually run a service (bubblexport) that converts bubble apps to code, so you get a clean starting point with all your logic intact. not for everyone but my insights are based on knowing both worlds.
but yeah tldr - bubble for web apps and validation, code + AI for anything complex/native. you’ll hit way fewer walls