Trouble Connecting My Website Content with Adalo App

[joeroot]

Hi everyone, I’m building an app with Adalo and trying to connect it with my existing website. The website mainly features restaurant-related content (menu pages, coupons, and blog posts), and I’d like to pull some of that content directly into my Adalo app so users don’t have to switch between the two platforms. However, I’ve been running into some technical problems that I can’t figure out.

The first issue is with the API integration. My website is built on WordPress, and I enabled the REST API so I can fetch menu and coupon data. When I test the API endpoints in Postman, everything works fine. But when I try to connect them to Adalo’s Custom Actions or External Collections, the data either doesn’t show up in the app or appears in a broken format. Sometimes, only partial fields are fetched, like the title but not the description or images.

Another problem is with images. On my site, the menu images are stored in the WordPress media library and delivered with absolute URLs. When Adalo pulls the data, the image fields don’t render correctly inside the app. Instead, I get blank placeholders, even though the URLs are accessible in a browser. I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue with how Adalo handles external image links or something wrong with my API output.

Performance is also a concern. Even when I manage to pull the data into Adalo, the loading times are much slower compared to the website. For example, a menu page that loads in 2 seconds on the website can take 8–10 seconds inside the app. This delay makes the app feel laggy and unresponsive. I’ve already added pagination to reduce payload size, but it hasn’t helped much.

I also tried embedding the website directly using Adalo’s webview component as a quick fix, but that created another set of issues. Some of the CSS formatting doesn’t adapt well to mobile, buttons overlap, and interactive elements like coupon downloads don’t always work. It’s usable, but far from the native app experience I was hoping for.

Has anyone here successfully integrated their website data (especially WordPress REST API) into Adalo? I’d love advice on whether I should adjust my API output, reformat image URLs, or use a middleware service like Xano or Integromat to clean the data before it hits Adalo. Any tips on improving performance would also be a big help, because right now I’m stuck between a partially working API setup and a clunky webview solution. Soory for the very long post

[Victor]

Hi @joeroot,

In some of my projects, I used Make (ex-Integromat) to fetch the data from Wordpress (there is even a connector in Make), prepare the data and put to Adalo DB. This setup required Adalo Collections API though. So I was mirroring info from Wordpress to Adalo.

As for the issues with direct API connections, this should be investigated on case-by-case basis. There could be multiple reasons for each issue, maybe some of them could be resolved, but detailed examination is needed for each issue.

Best,
Victor.

[joeroot]

@joeroot

Hi everyone, I’m building an app with Adalo and trying to connect it with my existing website. The website mainly features restaurant-related content (menu pages, coupons, and blog posts), and I’d like to pull some of that content directly into my Adalo app so users don’t have to switch between the two platforms. However, I’ve been running into some technical problems that I can’t figure out.

The first issue is with the API integration. My website is built on WordPress, and I enabled the REST API so I can fetch menu and coupon data. When I test the API endpoints in Postman, everything works fine. But when I try to connect them to Adalo’s Custom Actions or External Collections, the data either doesn’t show up in the app or appears in a broken format. Sometimes, only partial fields are fetched, like the title but not the description or images.

Another problem is with images. On my site, the menu images are stored in the WordPress media library and delivered with absolute URLs. When Adalo pulls the data, the image fields don’t render correctly inside the app. Instead, I get blank placeholders, even though the URLs are accessible in a browser. I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue with how Adalo handles external image links or something wrong with my API output.

Performance is also a concern. Even when I manage to pull the data into Adalo, the loading times are much slower compared to the website. For example, a menu page that loads in 2 seconds on the website can take 8–10 seconds inside the app. This delay makes the app feel laggy and unresponsive. I’ve already added pagination to reduce payload size, but it hasn’t helped much.

I also tried embedding the website directly using Adalo’s webview component as a quick fix, but that created another set of issues. Some of the CSS formatting doesn’t adapt well to mobile, buttons overlap, and interactive elements like coupon downloads don’t always work. It’s usable, but far from the native app experience I was hoping for.

Has anyone here successfully integrated their website data (especially WordPress REST API) into Adalo? I’d love advice on whether I should adjust my API output, reformat image URLs, or use a middleware service like Xano or Integromat to clean the data before it hits Adalo. Any tips on improving performance would also be a big help, because right now I’m stuck between a partially working API setup and a clunky webview solution

Thanks a lot for the insight — that actually gives me a clearer direction. Using Make (Integromat) as a middleware to clean and structure the data before pushing it into Adalo makes a lot of sense. I hadn’t considered fully mirroring my WordPress content into the Adalo database, but that might solve both the broken field and performance issues I’ve been seeing.

I’ll give that setup a try using the Adalo Collections API. If it helps stabilize the data flow from WordPress, it could be a much cleaner long-term solution than relying on direct API calls or the webview workaround. Appreciate you taking the time to explain your approach — really helpful!