Everything on the canvas
Notes
Four platform teardowns and the arithmetic underneath them. Start with the four meters if you have not picked a platform yet; go straight to a review if you have, and read the one about leaving before you commit either way.
Newest first
What the Free Tiers Actually Ship on These Four Platforms
All four publish a free plan and none of them tests the thing you need tested. Here is exactly what each one withholds, and how to run a trial that tells you something.
Internal Tools or Client Portals: The Shape Decides the Tool
Most people pick a no-code platform on features and then discover it was priced for a different shape of application. Work out which of four shapes you are building first.
Getting Your App Out: What These Platforms Let You Take
Every one of these vendors documents a way to export your data. Not one documents a way to export the application. That asymmetry is the most important thing to understand before you build.
What an App User Costs on Softr, and Where the Steps Are
Softr is the only platform in this category you can price exactly before you build. The arithmetic is simple; the part that hurts is where the plan boundaries fall.
What Glide Counts as an Update (And What It Doesn't)
Glide's documentation is unusually specific about which actions cost you an update and which are free. That list contains the single biggest lever you have over a Glide bill.
What a Bubble Workload Unit Is (And Why Nobody Can Price Yours)
Bubble's bill follows server work rather than seats or records. Here is what the unit measures, what the documentation does and does not publish, and how to keep the number down.
The Four Meters: How No-Code App Builders Actually Charge
Workload, updates, people, published apps. Four meters, four different definitions of an expensive app, and one reason comparing headline prices tells you almost nothing.
Adalo Review (2026): The One With No Usage Meter
Adalo removed usage-based charging and now bills per published app. That makes it the only platform here whose invoice cannot surprise you — and the one whose logic will run out first.
Softr Review (2026): You Pay for People, Not for Usage
Softr never holds your data, which makes it the only platform here you can price exactly before you build — and the only one you can leave without losing your records.
Glide Review (2026): Fast to Ship, Priced by the Row
Glide turns a table into a usable app faster than anything else in this category. Its bill depends on a detail most buyers never check — where the data lives when somebody changes it.
Bubble Review (2026): The Highest Ceiling, The Vaguest Bill
Bubble will let a non-programmer build software that has no business being buildable without code. Then it bills for server resources in a unit nobody can forecast, which is the whole review in one sentence.