The Ultimate Guide to Bubble Performance - how to build fast, scalable applications in Bubble

Notes on the third revision: The third revision includes a brand new section on workload, as well as new recommendations for image compression. Also, multiple typos and small errors have been corrected, thanks to attentive readers!

Notes on the second revision: The second edition is out: more than 50 extra pages of content, including a brand new process for structuring your database. Read more about the changes in this article. This update contains pages of information not found anywhere else coming directly from Bubble's head engineers.

Bubble is changing the way web applications are built. Anyone can now build the next big social network, SaaS or app startup.

But its amazing flexibility comes at a cost: the freedom to build your app in any way you want also let's you set it up in ways that are not optimal for high performance and scaling. Bubble's official documentation is designed to help you set up an app quickly and easily, not to promote methods that leverage Bubble's most advanced features to speed up your pages, workflows and database.

WHAT THE BOOK TEACHES

It's easy to think of performance as one thing: how fast an app can process a request. But in truth, performance is a complex combination of software, hardware, your user's device, app design and psychology.

Every app works on two layers: one layer is hidden and one is visible: one is complex to the point where a human brain cannot even begin to process it - the other working solely and intentionally to hide that fact. Your job as a developer is to break the chain between  the two layers and make complicated stuff seem easy

User-perceived performance is the only performance that matters. In the stage show that is your app, you are the magician. You get to tell the user what to do and where to direct his attention. You get to prepare the stage, the machinery, the tools and equipment and train the beautiful assistant to do exactly what you want to avoid breaking the illusion. The user doesn’t need to know what’s going on backstage.

If you do your job right, they’ll believe it’s magic. If you reveal your trick, or complain how hard it is to do, you’re not helping your audience - you’re ruining their evening.

THE BOOK DIVES DEEP INTO BOTH LAYERS

• how to  set up your app to load pages, process workflows and edit database records efficiently
• how to communicate well to your users so that your app seems faster than it really is

Over 200 pages, numerous examples, scenarios, illustrations and screenshots, the book doesn't teach set general best practices: it gives you the tools to optimize your app in ways that make sense for your unique project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Concepts, definitions and fine print

What Performance is

The two layers of app performance

Perceived vs actual performance

Developer-perceived performance

Performance as a feature

Knowing the platform

Bubble plans

The research phase

Asking the right questions

Understanding Bubble’s capacity dilemma

Bubble performance vs. device performance

Bubble’s servers and CloudFlare

Bubble’s performance limitation

How Bubble's database indexing works

How a page is loaded

How Bubble prioritises workflows

How to build for performance

RAM usage and download size

How small should a website be?

How can I measure the size of my page

Using Chrome Devtools to analyze your page

The Waterfall Chart

The Bubble engine

Images

Fonts

Icon packs

Javascript libraries (plugins)

CSS (styles)

Single-page app versus multi-page app

The Repeating Group trap

Full load vs partial load

Hiding by default

Lazy loading

CPU usage

Rendering the page

Leveraging client-side data processing

The database

What is a database? A quick introduction

Introduction to structuring

Detailed guide on structuring the database

Database structuring scenarios: two case studies

Search complexity and download size

Searches vs lists

Searching efficiently

Nested structures

Structuring Data Types for searching

Rendering lists

Option sets

Workflows

What are workflows?

Front-end and back-end workflows

Client-side and server-side actions

What slows workflows down?

Action response design

Immediate response

Delayed response

Background triggering

Spacing out workflows

Do Not Repeat Yourself (DRY)

Leveraging the Bubble back-end

Communicating clearly

Conclusion

Refund Policy

If the book for any reason fails to meet your expectations, please get in touch within 30 days, and you'll get a full refund.