LearningFlow LearningFlow vs Bubble
Bubble builds and hosts real software: a visual editor, a custom database, and a live app on your own domain or in the app stores. A Bubble project's web and mobile apps already share one database and one set of privacy rules. A LearningFlow solution also holds several apps over one shared database, and each app is given its own list of allowed tables, columns and rows, which can be narrowed or switched off without touching the others.
App builders · Sources last read 13 September 2026
Choose Bubble if
Choose Bubble when the thing being built is the product itself, with its own domain, its own sign-ups and paying strangers.
- A college spin-out ships a public web app on its own domain, taking Stripe payments from strangers
- The same app has to exist as native iOS and Android builds, submitted to the app stores
- A developer wants custom branches, point-in-time backups and days of server logs before launch
Choose LearningFlow if
Choose LearningFlow when the app is one part of a school's week, and the rest is lessons, files, video and marking.
- A parent-facing page and the office screen read the same records, with the parent page cut down to a few columns and only that child's rows
- Department heads want a rubric as a .docx and a marks sheet whose formulas still calculate
- Three hundred teachers need accounts, and only the twelve running pilots should see the app builder
Where the two are built differently.
One app, one database.
One app means one door. Whatever the form is allowed to do, it is allowed to do everywhere. Stopping a parent from reading the other thirty replies is a rule you write inside the app, and have to keep writing correctly.
Several apps, one base, a contract each.
Each app holds its own contract: which tables, which columns, which rows, and which of read, insert, update and delete. The reminder never sees a medical note. Suspend one app and the other two keep running.
What each one does.
Written from each product's own documentation. Where something is true only on a higher tier, the row says so.
| Bubble | LearningFlow | |
|---|---|---|
| Native mobile apps | Builds native iOS and Android versions for the App Store and Google Play, with unlimited over-the-air updates to the latest build, so small fixes reach users without a new submission. Mobile is priced separately: web plus mobile starts at $59 a month billed annually. | Published apps run in a browser at their own address with their own sign-in. There is no app store build. |
| Files it hands back | Exports database records as CSV, JSON or NDJSON, one data type at a time. DOCX, XLSX or PPTX means a marketplace plugin. | Work with AI runs Python, LibreOffice and Pandoc on a sandboxed Linux machine and returns .pptx, .xlsx, .docx, .mp4 and .png. |
| Choosing the model | Bubble's in-editor AI Agent does not name its model, and the manual describes no picker for it. For AI inside the app you build, the API Connector connects to OpenAI, Claude or another provider on your own key. | Flow Designer reaches Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Grok and DeepSeek among others. No plan or seat gates the list. |
| Adding the tenth person | Plans are priced per app, and collaborators are capped: Free and Starter support none beyond the owner, Growth allows two, Team allows five, and Enterprise sets its own limit. | Credits, not seats, so a quiet department costs nothing until it runs something. |
| Switching features per member | Per collaborator you set app access, data access, log access, an admin flag and a development-only restriction, per app. | Seven capabilities switch per member: org library, chat, flow creator, assignment creator, solution designer, base, work with AI. |
| Student accounts | No learner account type, and no class, roster or assignment mechanics. People using your app are rows in its User table. | Students are a first-class user type, with their own accounts, join codes and assignments. |
| Learning records | Not a platform feature. Sending xAPI statements is something you would build inside the app you make. | Records of what each learner did are kept in xAPI form. Upload a course package, keep the records in LearningFlow's own store, or send them to the learning record store the organisation already runs. |
| Calling it from your own systems | An inbound Data API and Workflow API with a generated Swagger spec, plus an API Connector for outbound calls. | POST /task/:taskId with an x-api-key, optional SSE streaming, per-key credit top-up and usage reporting. |
The account holds the work.
Someone has to ask her to hand it over, or it goes with her.
The work was made on a personal login, so recovering it is a favour rather than a setting. Schools discover this in August, when the person who built the scheme of work no longer answers email.
The organisation holds the work.
Ms Okafor's key is revoked. The work has not moved.
People hold keys, not possessions. Removing someone removes their key. Whoever teaches 6C next September opens the same library and the same base, on their first morning, without asking anyone for a copy.
What comes with it here.
A file, not a data export
Ask for a Year 8 marks sheet and you get an .xlsx whose formulas still calculate when you open it.
Fifty-nine tools already written
Lesson plans, rubrics, quizzes, worksheets, report comments, text levelling and YouTube questions sit in a public gallery, ready to run.
A narrated whiteboard video
One sentence becomes an MP4 in 16:9, 9:16 or 1:1, with subtitles off, as a sidecar .srt, or burned in.
Secrets the app never holds
A published app calls Gmail, Resend, WhatsApp, Firecrawl, speech-to-text and web search with credentials injected on the server.
Where Bubble is the better choice
If the deliverable is a production software product rather than a learning artefact, Bubble wins, and it is not close. A team shipping a public app on its own domain, with Stripe payments, row-level Privacy Rules enforced on the server, an inbound API for the student information system, and native iOS and Android builds in the stores, should build it in Bubble. Its hosting, its authentication and its plugin marketplace have years of production traffic behind them. For one standalone internal app with no organisation around it, Bubble is also simply a shorter road.
The whole stack against Bubble.
The table above compares the two at the job they share. This one runs every capability past both, because what a school is choosing between is usually a tool that does one job and a workspace that does many. Hover any mark to see what it means, and a partial one to see exactly what is limited.
| LearningFlow | Bubble | |
|---|---|---|
| Ask and read | ||
| Chat with AI | ||
| Research the web and write it up | ||
| Read text off an image or a scan | ||
| Agent browses the live web | ||
| Make | ||
| PowerPoint deck | ||
| Spreadsheet with working formulas | ||
| Word document | ||
| Image generation | ||
| Video generation | ||
| Narrated whiteboard video, corrected scene by scene | ||
| Voice-over | ||
| Song generation | ||
| Interactive web page | ||
| Edit what it made, online | ||
| Slide and design templates | ||
| Presenter on camera, from a photo you supply | ||
| Teach | ||
| Ready-made teacher tools | ||
| Build your own tool, no code | ||
| Lesson that branches on the answer | ||
| Hears them read aloud, checks pronunciation | ||
| Assign to a class with a join code | ||
| Assignments and submissions | ||
| Student accounts | ||
| LTI link from your LMS | ||
| Learning records to your own LRS | ||
| SCORM 1.2 package out | ||
| Build | ||
| Working app | ||
| Full working platform templates | ||
| Several apps over one database, rights each | ||
| App sends email or WhatsApp | ||
| App runs on a schedule | ||
| App accepts webhooks | ||
| Generate real-time apps | ||
| Generate AI-driven apps | ||
| Shared database | ||
| Revoke one app's access, not the others | ||
| Run | ||
| Run any tool from your own software | ||
| Choose the AI model, on every plan | ||
| Switch a feature off per group | ||
| Organisation keeps the work when staff leave | ||
| We do not do this | ||
| Transcribe a video or audio file | ||
| Custom domain for a published app | ||
Before they decide.
We already have an app in Bubble. Can the two run together?
Yes. Bubble's API Connector calls outside services, and LearningFlow answers POST /task/:taskId with an x-api-key. A backend workflow in Bubble can run a flow, take the result back, and write it into its own database.
Can a Bubble app be moved into LearningFlow?
Not as code. Bubble's ownership page states that apps only run on Bubble and there is no way to export the application as code, so the logic is rebuilt rather than moved. The data comes out as CSV, JSON or NDJSON, one data type at a time, and lands in a Base.
What does a team of ten cost on each?
Bubble prices per project, not per seat. Starter Web is $29 a month billed annually and allows no collaborators, Growth is $119 and allows two, Team is $349 and allows five. Ten editors means Enterprise pricing. LearningFlow has no seats, and personal, organisation and enterprise wallets stay separate.
Will either of them give us a PowerPoint or a Word file?
Bubble does not natively. Its export is database records as CSV, JSON or NDJSON, with document generation left to plugins such as Carbone or Documentero. LearningFlow returns .pptx, .docx and .xlsx from a sandbox running LibreOffice and Pandoc. That sandbox has no ffmpeg and no OCR, so it cannot transcribe a recording or read a scanned page.
What happens when we go past the limit?
Bubble meters workload units and charges $0.30 per extra 1,000. With overages switched off, it emails you and takes the live app offline. LearningFlow spends credits per run, and each API key can carry its own top-up and usage report, so the bill follows what was actually run.
Where this came from. Read on 13 September 2026. Bubble changes its product and its prices without telling us, so check anything that decides a purchase.
Try it on your own work.
Teachers get credits every month, free. No card, no seat count.