BuildFire's pricing and limitations have you searching for alternatives—you're in the right place to find the best option for your app project.
Adalo is a no-code app builder for database-driven web apps and native iOS and Android apps—one version across all three platforms, published to the Apple App Store and Google Play. BuildFire is a no-code platform focused primarily on mobile app development, offering pre-built templates and plugin-based customization for businesses looking to create internal or customer-facing apps.
What matters most is getting your app to market quickly and reaching the largest possible audience. That means launching an MVP fast and publishing not just a web app, but native iOS and Android apps to the app stores—unlocking massive distribution potential and essential features like push notifications. We've tested five BuildFire alternatives against these criteria to help you choose the platform that delivers real results.
The Top 5 BuildFire Alternatives
- Adalo, the best overall BuildFire alternative.
- Bubble, the BuildFire alternative with the largest ecosystem.
- Bravo Studio, the BuildFire alternative for designers.
- Glide, the best BuildFire alternative for aesthetics.
- GoodBarber, the BuildFire alternative for e-commerce and subscription apps.
Why Choose a BuildFire Alternative?
While BuildFire features an intuitive point-and-click building interface, it doesn't have the design capabilities to consistently produce unique and eye-catching apps. BuildFire also misses the mark in several other critical areas that affect both your budget and your app's potential.
Since 2014, I've helped freelancers, businesses, and organizations find the best app builder to suit their needs. These folks consistently have the following issues with BuildFire:
High Price
BuildFire's lowest pricing tier is an eye-watering $100/month (paid quarterly), and the limited features you get are equally painful. For instance, while you can publish to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, you only get 100 downloads.
Solution: Pick an app builder with a reasonably priced lower tier that doesn't cap your growth. Adalo's comparable plan starts at $36/month with unlimited usage and no download restrictions. Every app builder on our list offers more value at a fraction of BuildFire's cost.
Very Few Design Capabilities
While it has an easy-to-learn building interface, BuildFire doesn't offer much to really make your app stand out in terms of aesthetics. Its elements, like buttons and text boxes, appear dated. Adjusting and configuring them can be tedious.
Solution: Select an app builder that has modern-looking elements and components, like Glide or Bravo Studio, two app builders that prioritize design. A modern look and feel will contribute to your app's aesthetic and enhance user experience (UX).
No Ecosystem
The poet John Donne once said, "No man is an island," a timeless nugget of wisdom that applies to app builders too. An app builder is not just a tool, but also part of a thriving ecosystem. It needs to provide a platform for its users to communicate and collaborate.
App builders should have a collection of tutorials to help beginners, a message board or Slack channel where users can discuss new features, and opportunities for developers to create and publish their own APIs and plugins.
BuildFire does not have such an ecosystem, constraining both its power as an app builder and community potential.
Solution: Choose an app builder with a thriving community that provides access to an active message board and offers freshly developed plugins made by users with technical skills. For instance, Bubble, Glide, and Adalo have all built large and helpful ecosystems.
#1 The Best Overall BuildFire Alternative
Adalo
What is it?
Adalo is a no-code app builder for database-driven web apps and native iOS and Android apps—one version across all three platforms. AI-assisted building and streamlined publishing enable launch to the Apple App Store and Google Play in days rather than months. The platform features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface described as "easy as PowerPoint" that allows you to customize your app to your exact specifications.
With the Adalo 3.0 infrastructure overhaul launched in late 2026, the platform is now 3-4x faster with modular infrastructure that scales to serve apps with over 1 million monthly active users. Paid plans include no record limits on the database and no usage-based charges—meaning no surprise bills as your app grows.
What does it do better than BuildFire?
While BuildFire offers an easy-to-learn interface, Adalo's is more intuitive. It allows you to drop elements, text, pictures, and more right onto your canvas. You can also adjust each element's size, color, and position by simply dragging your mouse. The platform can display up to 400 screens at once on a single canvas, giving you complete visibility into your app's architecture.
Adalo's AI features accelerate development significantly. Magic Start generates complete app foundations from simple descriptions—tell it you need a booking app for a dog grooming business, and it creates your database structure, screens, and user flows automatically. Magic Add lets you add features through natural language requests, while X-Ray identifies performance issues before they affect users.
Adalo has an enormous ecosystem full of tutorials and guides and a long list of resources. You'll also find the latest plugins made by the Adalo developer community and a helpful message board where you can get answers if you get stuck building your app.
Who is it best for?
Adalo is the app builder I recommend more than others for a reason: It gives you the power to bring almost any app idea to life. Over 3 million apps have been created on Adalo, with thousands of freelancers, entrepreneurs, and small and medium businesses using it to create everything from unique internal business apps to thriving social networks.
Final Verdict
With competitive pricing starting at $36/month, a thriving ecosystem, AI-assisted building, and the ability to design modern-looking native apps, Adalo is the best overall BuildFire alternative.
#2 The BuildFire Alternative With The Largest Ecosystem
Bubble
What is it?
Bubble is a visual web app builder that's been around for over a decade, featuring a vast ecosystem and a flexible app-building interface with significant customization options.
What does it do better than BuildFire?
Although Bubble's building interface does have a bit of a learning curve, the Bubble ecosystem is enormous—the largest in the app-building space. It provides enough videos and tutorials to get the hang of the app-building interface with invested time.
Once you know what you're doing, you'll have the design freedom to make attention-grabbing, highly functional apps that you can supercharge with plugins from Bubble's mammoth plugin library.
However, there are important trade-offs to consider. Bubble's web and mobile wrapper offering starts at $59/month with usage-based Workload Unit charges and limits on records. The extensive customization often results in slower applications that can struggle under increased load, frequently requiring hired experts to optimize. Bubble's mobile app solution is a wrapper for the web app, which can introduce challenges at scale—and one app version doesn't automatically update web, Android, and iOS apps deployed to their respective stores.
Who is it best for?
Bubble can benefit businesses of all sizes, from scrappy startup teams to enterprises. While Bubble doesn't build true native mobile apps, it has the flexibility to create almost any web app you can imagine—provided you're prepared for the learning curve and potential optimization costs.
Final Verdict
While it takes time to learn and may require expert help for complex applications, Bubble offers more design freedom than BuildFire and has a large, supportive ecosystem. For teams prioritizing web apps and willing to invest in optimization, it's a capable choice.
#3 The BuildFire Alternative For Designers
Bravo Studio
What is it?
Bravo Studio is an app builder that transforms Figma designs into stunning native mobile apps.
What does it do better than BuildFire?
If you're a designer with Figma experience, Bravo Studio is your go-to BuildFire alternative. Mix and match which Figma designs you want to make into apps, and then choose the one to publish in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
While its ecosystem has room to grow, try out the Bravo Academy to get the most out of Bravo's app-building interface. You'll learn how to leverage Bravo for maximum design freedom to create breathtaking apps unique to your own brand.
Bravo Studio does have a limited backend, so depending on the type of app you want to build, you might have to bring your own. This adds complexity compared to platforms like Adalo that include a complete, scalable database with unlimited records on paid plans.
Who is it best for?
Any designer who works with Figma will find Bravo useful. For those who want to create unique native mobile apps from their own graphic designs, look no further than Bravo.
Final Verdict
Bravo Studio is the best BuildFire alternative for designers. You'll get much more power and design freedom, though you may need to source your own backend infrastructure.
#4 The Best BuildFire Alternative For Aesthetics
Glide
What is it?
Glide is a web app builder that creates sleek and attention-grabbing apps right out of the box, with a heavy focus on templates and spreadsheet-based data.
What does it do better than BuildFire?
While Glide offers less design freedom than some alternatives due to its template-focused approach, its point-and-click interface provides powerful functionality for specific use cases. It has one of the larger ecosystems and features an enormous template library.
When you choose Glide, you'll get access to an expansive community of experts who frequent Glide's message boards. You'll get answers to questions and learn about Glide's latest plugins and APIs.
If you're having trouble learning Glide's building interface, visit Glide University for tutorials, guides, and videos—it's one of the most comprehensive tutorial collections available.
However, Glide has significant limitations to consider. Pricing starts at $60/month to get custom domain capability, but you're still limited by app updates and data record rows, which attract additional charges. Glide does not support Apple App Store or Google Play Store publishing—a critical limitation if native mobile distribution matters to your business. For spreadsheet-based apps, Adalo's SheetBridge feature offers similar convenience by turning a Google Sheet into an actual database, but with the added benefit of native app publishing.
Who is it best for?
Glide is a great choice for individuals and businesses that want to build a PWA quickly using templates. While many businesses use Glide to make beautiful internal business apps, the template restrictions create generic, simplistic apps with limited creative freedom.
Final Verdict
Glide gives you the resources and functionality to build apps that are more eye-catching than BuildFire, but the template-focused approach limits customization. If you need native mobile apps or unrestricted database storage, consider Adalo instead.
#5 The BuildFire Alternative For E-Commerce and Subscription Apps
GoodBarber
What is it?
GoodBarber is a competitively-priced mobile app builder for creating e-commerce and content-subscription apps.
What does it do better than BuildFire?
For those who want to create an online store, GoodBarber provides a better building experience than BuildFire. GoodBarber's intuitive interface makes for easy editing, allowing you to swiftly and seamlessly add your product offerings and descriptions.
While GoodBarber doesn't have the most robust ecosystem, its design freedom and glossy elements create better, more modern-looking apps than BuildFire.
Who is it best for?
If you want to launch an e-commerce app or online store that you can publish in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, GoodBarber is worth considering.
Both options are cheaper than BuildFire's lowest tier, and you get unlimited downloads from the app stores.
Final Verdict
GoodBarber is a cost-effective, easy-to-use BuildFire alternative for creating specialized, professional-looking e-commerce apps.
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Why choose Adalo over other app building solutions? | Adalo is an AI-powered app builder that creates true native iOS and Android apps. Unlike web wrappers, it compiles to native code and publishes directly to both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store from a single codebase—the hardest part of launching an app handled automatically. |
| What's the fastest way to build and publish an app to the App Store? | Adalo's drag-and-drop interface combined with AI-assisted building features like Magic Start and Magic Add let you go from idea to published app in days rather than months. The platform handles the complex App Store submission process, so you can focus on features and user experience instead of certificates and provisioning profiles. |
| Which is more affordable, Adalo or Bubble? | Adalo starts at $36/month with unlimited usage and no record caps on paid plans. Bubble starts at $59/month with usage-based Workload Unit charges and record limits. Adalo also includes native mobile app publishing, while Bubble's mobile solution is a web wrapper. |
| Which is faster to build with, Adalo or Bubble? | Adalo is generally faster for most users. Its interface is described as "easy as PowerPoint," and AI features like Magic Start generate complete app foundations from descriptions. Bubble offers more customization but has a steeper learning curve and often requires expert help for optimization. |
| Which is easier for beginners, Adalo or Glide? | Both are beginner-friendly, but they serve different needs. Glide is faster for simple template-based apps but limits creative freedom and doesn't support app store publishing. Adalo offers more flexibility with its drag-and-drop canvas while still being accessible to non-technical users. |
| Is Adalo better than Bubble for mobile apps? | Yes. Adalo creates true native iOS and Android apps from a single codebase. Bubble's mobile solution is a wrapper for web apps, which can introduce performance challenges at scale and requires separate management for each platform. |
| Can I migrate from BuildFire to Adalo? | Yes. While there's no one-click migration, Adalo's intuitive interface and AI features like Magic Start make rebuilding straightforward. Many users find they can recreate their BuildFire apps with more features and better performance in Adalo. |
| Does Adalo have database limits? | No. Paid Adalo plans have no record limit cap on the database—unlimited database records. With proper data relationship setups, Adalo apps can scale beyond 1 million monthly active users. |
| Can I publish native mobile apps with Glide? | No. Glide does not support Apple App Store or Google Play Store publishing. If native mobile distribution is important for your business, Adalo is a better choice as it publishes true native apps to both stores from a single build. |
| What types of apps can I build with Adalo? | Adalo gives you the power to bring almost any app idea to life, from internal business apps to social networks to marketplaces. Over 3 million apps have been created on the platform across virtually every industry. |
