The Bubble alternative for the backend you can take with you

TL;DR

Bubble is one of the most complete no-code app builder there is: design, database, workflows, privacy rules, user accounts and hosting live in one visual editor, and since the AI features you can generate pages, data types and workflows from a prompt. Millions of builders use it, and for a founder who wants to launch a web app without a frontend developer it is hard to beat. The trade-offs sit underneath. Apps are billed by workload units, so every search, page load and workflow run costs, the shared environment is hosted in the US with no option to move it below Enterprise, there is no code export and Bubble states that migrating an app away from its hosting is not possible. pylo is a backend platform: your own entities and relations with a typed GraphQL API, permissions down to the field, flows, forms, admin UI, events and MCP, hosted in Germany, with unlimited users and API requests. The frontend is yours, built on the Next.js or Expo SDK, often by an AI coding assistant, and it keeps working wherever the backend runs. If you want the whole app in one editor and US hosting is fine, Bubble is a strong choice. If you want a backend you can trust with European data, scale without counting workload units and leave with everything, pylo is the alternative.

What is pylo?

pylo is a Backend-as-a-Service platform from Germany that you can use to build the operating system for your company. You model entities, fields and relations in the admin panel or through the API, and pylo generates a typed GraphQL API immediately. The same permission model governs data, the admin UI, forms, flows, dashboards and the MCP server. With pylo flows you build automations on top of your own data model and connect the tools you already use. The admin UI, forms and document templates mean operations teams work with the data without a developer in between, and the Next.js, React, Node and Expo SDKs are there for the apps you build yourself.

What is Bubble?

Bubble is a US no-code platform for building web apps and, in beta, native mobile apps. In its visual editor you design pages from elements, define data types and fields in the built-in database, build workflows that run on user actions, schedules or data changes, and set privacy rules per data type that decide who may read, create or modify records. The API connector talks to external services such as Stripe or OpenAI, the Data API exposes your records, and a plugin marketplace adds more. AI generates whole apps from a prompt, an AI agent edits design, logic and data through chat, and version control with branches comes on the Growth plan and up. Bubble hosts every app on AWS in the US, is SOC 2 Type II certified and bills by workload units, a measure of the server resources an app consumes.

At a glance

A backend you own versus an app you rent

Bubble's promise is that you never leave the editor, and it delivers on that. The cost is that the editor is the only place your app exists. Bubble documents that migrating an app away from its hosting is not possible, there is no code export, and the shared environment runs in the US with no region choice below Enterprise. For a weekend project that is fine. For a company whose customers, contracts and processes live in that app, it means the business runs on infrastructure it can neither move nor take with it.

pylo is built the other way round. The backend is a typed GraphQL API generated from your own data model, hosted in Germany on every plan. The frontend is yours: build it on the Next.js, React or Expo SDK, or let an AI coding assistant generate it against the typed schema, and host it wherever you want. Add an entity, a field or a relation in the admin panel and the API updates at once, without migrations or redeployments. Field types include relations, enums, JSON, public or private files, rich text, dates, booleans and number and text formatters, with validation built in, and the backend is made to handle millions of records. If you ever leave, you export all data as CSV or JSON, and the data models, flow definitions, SDK code and your own frontend go with you.

Workload units versus three meters without a hard stop

Bubble bills by workload: a database search costs about 0.3 units plus 0.015 per returned record, creating a record about 0.5, a backend workflow action about 0.6 and an inbound API call 0.01, according to Bubble's manual. The Starter plan includes 175,000 units a month, Growth 250,000 and Team 500,000; beyond that you pay overages at up to $0.30 per thousand units or buy discounted workload tiers. The result is that a well-used app's bill depends on how efficiently its searches and workflows are built, and optimising workload becomes a discipline of its own.

pylo bills three things: records, flow actions and file storage and traffic. API requests, page loads, searches and users are not metered at all, on any plan. A search that returns ten thousand records costs the same as one that returns ten. Plans differ only in included usage, overages are billed rather than blocked, and there is nothing to optimise except your own code.

Permissions that follow the data everywhere

Bubble's privacy rules are a real strength compared with most no-code tools: per data type you define who may find, view or modify records and which fields are visible, with conditions on the current user, and a security dashboard helps you check them. They are defined per data type inside the app, and anything the rules do not cover is readable by the Data API and by every search in the app. pylo puts the rules into the data layer. Tenants are separated at the row level, and inside a tenant any entity can act as the requester (ARO) and any entity as the requested object (ACO), with hierarchies and field-level rules. Every path into the data is GraphQL, so the same rules apply to your frontend, the API, the admin panel, forms, flows, dashboards and MCP. pylo also handles login for your users with email and password, Microsoft and Google SSO and API keys, with no limit on users or admins.

pylo flows instead of workload-metered workflows

Bubble's workflows are visual and tightly integrated with the page: a button click, a schedule or a data change runs a chain of actions, and the API connector calls external services. Every action is billed in workload units, logs are kept for two to twenty days depending on the plan, and recursion or a loop that runs too often shows up on the bill. In pylo you build automations in a visual workflow engine called pylo flows. Any event on your data can start a flow, whether it came from your frontend, a form, the admin UI, the API or another flow, and so can a cron schedule or an incoming webhook. Flows include retries, custom rate limiting, error handling and full event logs, everything is statically typed, and pylo ships integrations for email sending and a range of third-party systems. For anything else you write a flow action in TypeScript.

Admin UI and forms you don't have to build

In Bubble the admin panel is one more set of pages you design yourself, and so is every form. pylo's admin UI is there from the moment you create an entity: list and detail views composed from predefined components, state-based field visibility and the same permissions as the API, so your operations team works with the data on day one while you build the customer-facing frontend. pylo forms are public or authenticated web forms with hidden fields, conditional rendering, validation rules and direct mapping to your entities, including relations, with several instances per form and a matching key that updates existing records. Document templates turn records into PDFs such as offers or confirmations.

Events and dashboards built in with pylo analytics

Bubble shows you workload consumption and server logs for a limited time, and product analytics come from plugins. Every create, update and delete in pylo emits an event with the full before and after state, stored on every plan, which you can combine with external events you bring in through the API. You build dashboards on records and events together, with the same permissions as the rest of pylo.

AI and MCP with guardrails

Bubble's AI generates apps from a prompt and an AI agent edits design, logic and data from chat, with AI credits per plan. pylo takes the opposite stance for production data: the MCP server is ready to connect, for developers who use agentic coding against the typed API and for team members who want to ask questions about their records from Claude, ChatGPT or any other client. The AI gets exactly the connected user's read permissions, nothing else, and pylo never applies an AI's writes directly: they arrive as proposals that a human accepts or declines inside pylo.

Pricing

Bubble's plan prices are per app and billed yearly; monthly billing costs more, and every plan is topped up by workload. A live app with real traffic quickly outgrows the included units, and the Free plan cannot go live at all. pylo bills per workspace with unlimited users and API requests, every plan can run in production, and every plan includes the backend, flows, the admin UI, forms, analytics and personal onboarding. Plans differ only in included usage for records, flow actions and file storage.

Hosting, compliance and reliability

All pylo content data, data models and databases live in data centres in Germany. Our subprocessor list is public and names every non-EU parent company openly. A GDPR data processing agreement is part of the terms, and we never use customer data to train AI models. Paid plans come with a 99.5% availability SLA, hourly encrypted backups kept for 30 days at a separate German location, and support from the team that builds the product.

Bubble is a US company and hosts all shared plans on AWS in the US; the manual states that the location cannot currently be changed, and only Enterprise lets you choose the AWS region. Bubble is SOC 2 Type II certified, encrypts data in transit and at rest and offers GDPR documentation. If your customers' data must stay in the EU on a plan you can afford, that is the first thing to check.

Where Bubble is the better choice

We would rather tell you than have you find out later:

• You want to design and launch a complete web app, pixel by pixel, without writing or generating any frontend code.

• You are a solo founder validating an idea, and one editor for everything matters more than ownership of the stack.

• You want native iOS and Android apps from the same editor, with templates, plugins and a marketplace.

• US hosting is fine for your users and your app's traffic fits inside the included workload units.

If you want the whole app in one place and can live with the hosting and the exit terms, Bubble is the most complete no-code builder there is. pylo is for teams that want to own the backend and the frontend, and run them from Germany.

Where pylo is a great Bubble alternative

We think these are the main reasons to pick pylo over Bubble:

• A backend you can leave with. Export all data as CSV, JSON or API; data models, flow definitions and SDK code are yours, and the frontend is your own code from day one.

• Hosted in Germany on every plan. Every record, file and event lives in German data centres, including on the free plan, with a public subprocessor list and a DPA in the terms.

• No workload units. API requests, searches, page loads and users are never metered; only records, flow actions and storage are, and overages are billed, not blocked.

• A typed GraphQL API. Generated from your model, with schema changes live immediately, so any frontend, mobile app, agent or external system can use the same backend.

• Permissions in the data layer, down to the field. One rule set with hierarchies for your frontend, API, admin UI, forms, flows, dashboards and MCP.

• Admin UI and forms without building pages. Views exist the moment you create an entity, forms map to entities and relations, and document templates produce PDFs.

• Flows with retries and full logs. Event, cron and webhook triggers, rate limiting, typed actions and custom actions in plain TypeScript, with logs kept on every plan.

• Analytics you don't have to instrument. Every change is an event with before and after state, and dashboards sit next to the data.

• AI that builds against a typed API. Coding assistants generate your frontend on the SDK, MCP answers with the user's exact permissions, and every AI write is a proposal a human approves.

• Free plan that can go live. Production use, unlimited users and API requests from the first day, with a 99.5% SLA, hourly backups and personal support from the first paid plan.

FAQs - Questions and answers about pylo

• Does pylo have a visual page builder like Bubble? No, pylo's admin UI is configured from predefined components for your team, and the customer-facing frontend is code you build on the SKDs for Nextjs. Because the GraphQL API is fully typed, AI coding assistants build that frontend quickly and correctly. The pylo flow editor is a visual tool for modelling workflows however.

• Can I use Bubble as the frontend for pylo? Yes, Bubble's API connector can call pylo's GraphQL API with an API key whose permissions you define in pylo. That keeps your data in Germany while you keep designing in Bubble, though every call still consumes Bubble workload units.

• How do I get my data out of Bubble? Export each data type as CSV from the Bubble editor or read it through the Data API, then import it with pylo's import profiles, which map columns to fields and handle relations through matching keys.

• Is pylo open source? No, but you can export all data at any time as CSV or JSON or through the API. The data models, flow definitions and generated SDK code are yours to keep, even after you leave.

• Where exactly is my data? Content data is in data centres in Germany and backups are kept at a different German location.

• Can I get access now? pylo is currently in private beta. Request access and we will set up your first entities with you on a call and onboard you personally for your first project.