Losing Patience with Adalo

Hey everyone,

I’ve spent so much time building my app on Adalo, thinking no-code would be a solid choice for this project. But honestly, the slow loading times are killing me. I feel like all the effort I put in is just getting overshadowed by how laggy everything is.

Is this just me? Or did I seriously pick the wrong platform for this? Any tips to speed things up would be amazing. Starting to regret the whole choice here… any help appreciated.

https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/51475676?key=66acf69fb34af0493d5b9000d3334eb3

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Slow loading times when your app is launched? Or in the editor?

Seen a lot of complaints about slow loading when their apps are launched

Adalo are meant to be working on performance with many upgrades - unsure on when those updates will be rolled out though

Their CEO is meant to be releasing a roadmap soon with regards to improving Adalo - it’s certainly needed!

I agree with what you’re saying tbh.

I am building prototypes on Adalo in my spare time but I won’t be launching anything until there are big improvements in performance and options to add an external database

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Hi Davit

NIce list of cars…it seems complete…too complete. You seem to pushing the custom list by pulling too much data from the database plus the dropdowns are writing to database. I have a similar issue with loading speed.

My custom list just contains 1 image and 4 text components. At about 300 records the list with lazy loading off slows to about 5 seconds to load. With 50 records, the speed is ok. I am expecting about 2000 to 3000 records…so I can guess that loading speed (lazy load off) will slow or even freeze.

Lazy loading is not a viable option for me as when I click a record to view details, the list resets & the user is brough to the top of the list again. This will kill the UX

I am now using a Horizontal Card List…the speed is slightly better & the list wont reset after I view details. I dont know how it will respond to 2000 to 3000 records…

Back to your issue. These will help improve speed

  1. Keep your list simple
  2. Do all the actions, display extra data on another linked screen
  3. Keep list filters to a minimum (more filters more processing time)

I am looking forward to the proposed 3 x improvement in performance

If anybody else has other helpful tips in speeding up list loading, it would be great,

Best Regards

Jay

I don’t want to offend anyone, but I feel like there is a bit of a storm brewing here, and I hope the CEO is tuned into this. You have a lot of long-time Adalo builders who have lived through the hard times. In general, those folks seem to be ok with the wait. On the other hand, you have a lot of newer builders who are really trying to decide whether to build on the platform or not. I know the CEO said a roadmap was coming, but we live in a nimble world. I get the feeling that if something isn’t released really quickly to address the challenges (performance in particular), they’re going to lose a lot of future builders. As an example, I have a project I am tinkering with now. I would like to launch something, but I’ve had multiple builders on this forum tell me not to bother launching until the performance issues are fixed. I’m going to play around a bit more - hoping they get fixed, but if something doesn’t change soon I’ll just move on. The no code market is getting too competitive for companies not to be nimble.

Thanks for the tips. The app we’ve built in Adalo has grown to include multiple connected environments, and I think that’s where Adalo’s limitations are really showing.

We have different apps for various functions—like a website with only 30 products, a customer check-out kiosk, a manager’s POS system, a display screen for customer info, and a mobile inspection app for our inspectors. There’s also a delivery management app for drivers, a parts ordering system, and specific apps for mobile tire services, detailing, and locksmith work.

Each of these apps is simple by itself. Most basic CRUD, nothing fancy with functions like checking off inspection items, viewing assigned loads and delivery locations, or displaying which vehicle needs tires and where it’s parked, what is next to do item for a mechanic. But with all these connected pieces, it’s becoming clear that it might be a bit too much for Adalo to handle smoothly.

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You have a list where each item has some components with conditional visibility and their own filters, which increases loading times.

For example, is it an option to move the dropdown filter “at auction/dealership/…” outside of the list and have it apply to the entire list?

Hello!

Thank you for being a part of Adalo! Our passionate makers are a key element that sets Adalo apart from other platforms!

We hear you and understand the frustration with performance. This is something our team is actively working on.

If you have additional questions or feedback, I would encourage you to book some time with our new CEO James who is eager to hear from makers and learn about their issues. You can do that here.

Hi @davit79,

It’s a bit difficult to say what exactly is causing the slowness. In general, the possible reasons are:

  • getting too much data and trying to display it all at once (e.g. list of 1000 entries)
  • sending too many requests on a page (e.g. try to load 10 lists at the same time)
  • too complex interface on the page with lots of groups, visibility conditions, etc.

Based on what I see on the screenshot it might be worthwhile to explore ##2 and 3.
In regards to #2, you can start with inspecting network traffic in browser console:

  • open the page which is before the current one
  • open console (Chrome / Mac is F12)
  • go to network tab in the console
  • click on the link to get to the page in question
  • watch how many requests are sent to the backend and how fast are they processed.

Each list creates a query to the backend, so if you have many lists - this will result in many queries.
Lists inside the lists are worse: each “child” list in the “parent” list will send a separate query, so you can imagine how the volume grows.
Refreshing lists will also produce extra load (refresh in Adalo works like re-sending the same query every 2…3…4 seconds).
So you can imagine that many lists will be something that slows down the performance.

In regards to the interface complexity, sometimes it is difficult to optimize it. But sometimes there are excessive groups which could be avoided.
Also, keep in mind that for webapps the interface is rendered in the browser itself (it’s not a complied app). So if browser is overloaded (slow PC / too many tabs / etc.), the app will perform slower.
Having countdowns and lottiefiles may also affect the performance. Using un-compressed images affects it as well.

I’m really looking forward to the platform improvements so that such issues disappear.

Best,
Victor.

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