Internal and External users pricing

Retool uses a user-based pricing model, where the price is set per user and depends on the pricing tier. Different user roles are priced differently: internal builders/editors start at $12 per month, internal end users (e.g., customer success managers interacting with a dashboard) start at $7 per month, and external users (e.g., vendors in a client portal) have a fixed price of $8 per month.

Bubble, on the other hand, has usage-based pricing. It calculates the "resource" required to perform a unit of work (measured in workload units) and charges accordingly. The cost varies based on the type of app and how extensively it is used. Bubble’s pricing tiers include a specific amount of workload units, starting at $32 per month. In addition to this, it’s important to consider the potential costs of purchasing plugins, which can be difficult to estimate when you’re just starting with your app.

Permission management

Both Retool and Bubble provide granular permission management at the component and data levels. In both tools, admins can configure permissions to restrict users from accessing certain apps, workflows, or connected resources. The key difference lies in how this is implemented: in Retool, permissions are managed using JavaScript, while in Bubble, it is done through a no-code point-and-click interface.

Custom components

Both Retool and Bubble provide the option to code your own custom components. However, in Bubble, this can only be done using JavaScript, and the functionality is limited to being used within Bubble itself. In contrast, Retool allows you to code custom UI components in nearly any front-end language and embed them into the app, offering greater flexibility and broader compatibility.

Themes

Retool’s theme builder allows users to adjust elements such as background colors, UI element surface colors, text colors, typography, and more. It provides a convenient way to set and manage themes across apps, ensuring consistency.Bubble, on the other hand, takes a more "design-centered" approach to themes, where themes are essentially a collection of styles. This approach offers more flexibility and is better suited for users with a design background. Retool prioritizes simplicity in theming, which comes at the expense of some flexibility.

Branding

Both Retool and Bubble enable the creation of branded apps for both internal and external users. Retool offers branding options across several user journey touchpoints, including email invitations, transactional emails, login and sign-up pages, the main menu, and individual apps. It relies on its internal theme builder for custom branding, which, while user-friendly, comes with some limitations.

Bubble, with its strong focus on design, leans heavily on external style and visual asset imports. This approach provides exceptional flexibility, allowing users to create truly on-brand experiences that can be tailored to meet even the most specific branding requirements.

Integrations

Bubble has an extensive library of plugins that allow it to integrate with virtually anything. However, it lacks native integrations, which can be a challenge when scaling the backend of an app. On the other hand, unlike Retool, Bubble offers numerous integrations with analytical tools such as Google Analytics and Mixpanel, providing valuable support for scaling and growing apps built with Bubble.

Bubble includes a built-in database by default, whereas Retool offers it as an optional feature alongside external database integrations, giving users more flexibility in choosing their data sources.

The same distinction applies to APIs: Retool supports popular standards like REST, GraphQL, and gRPC out of the box. In contrast, Bubble requires configuring a specific "connector" to interact with external APIs, which must be set up according to Bubble’s documentation rather than relying on widely accepted standards.

External API

Retool offers the ability to extend the app externally through an API, supporting standard methods like GET, POST, PATCH, and DELETE for managing users, user attributes, permissions, resources, environments, and more. This provides great flexibility for integrating and scaling applications. Bubble, at present, does not offer this option

Deployment

Bubble only provides cloud hosting, while Retool provides both cloud and self-hosted options. Retool also provides a Deployment Dashboard to view the status of deployments, logs, and manually deploy changes.

Releases & version control

Bubble, similar to Retool, provides most of the basic release control functionality, including custom branches, multiple savepoints, and history. However, Bubble offers only two environments—Development and Live—that cannot be deleted, with each having a separate database. Additionally, Bubble lacks Git integration, which Retool supports. Git integration allows Retool apps to connect with repositories like GitHub, GitLab, and AWS CodeCommit, offering a seamless and efficient experience for developers.

Security and Data Privacy

Retool provides a high level of security and data privacy with features such as a self-hosted deployment option, encryption, role-based controls, multi-factor authentication, OAuth and SAML support, and IP whitelisting. Retool is also SOC 2 certified and compliant with GDPR and HIPAA. In contrast, Bubble does not offer a self-hosted deployment option or support for IP whitelisting. Additionally, Bubble's heavy reliance on third-party plugins introduces significant security risks.

Source Code export

Both Retool and Bubble retain ownership of the code and, to an extent, the app you’ve built on their platforms. The key difference, however, is that not owning the code for an internal tool, such as a dashboard, is generally more acceptable than not owning the code for your main app that customers interact with. This introduces a range of risks when starting development on Bubble. If you decide to move away from either Bubble or Retool at any point, the process will be equally painful and costly.

Jet Admin - flexibility and usability sweet spot

Jet Admin was designed with a strong focus on apps involving external users, such as client and vendor portals, category management apps, and more. Unlike Retool, its pricing scales well for a large number of users and supports many simple to mid-complexity use cases without requiring code, enabling non-technical or semi-technical users to build apps quickly.

Compared to Bubble, Jet Admin emphasizes native integrations and back-end flexibility while offering intuitive building mechanics. Variable referencing, calculations, conditional logic, workflows, data blending, and data transformations are handled through a point-and-click UI, with the option to extend the app using custom components and JavaScript front-end scripting. Components like forms and tables are automatically generated based on the schema of your data source, and CRUD functions can be reused throughout the app.