Bubble app on Europe (EU) server located

This is big for us too! Some larger corporates that we’re training do not want to consider Bubble since servers are located in US.
I’m sure they can switch to dedicated plans eventually, however since lower (trial) plans do not offer the EU option it makes it super difficult to convince stakeholders. (Teams are not able to try it on smaller experiments first)

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Hello there,

It´s a big deal for everyone located inside EU and since this topic was started a long time ago I think we will have an answer soon as the Bubble team are seeing that this topic has a lot of interest.

By now (I´ve asked Emmanuel a long time ago) the only thing you can do to have an EU server located is to buy the dedicated hosting plan which is really really expensive. So if you can afford it there is an option.

For others like us that cannot afford a dedicated plan, I recommend everybody to write in this topic their concerns so the Bubble team can see that this is a huge deal.

Thanks a lot and have a great day.

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Sorry but is this a problem for only a specific kind of website/app or EVERY app where users create profiles with info of age/country/gender, upload pictures/video/voice recordings etc?
My idea got those things, kinda like instagram except the main content is text/voice or video recordings rather than pictures.
I live in Europe and want to gather posts from users all over the world.

I started learning about this whole web design thing just 2 months ago, so I’m currently overloaded on information and some terms confuse me here and there :smile:

It’s a problem that affects any type of PII

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We are aware this is something important, but we unfortunately have a few other more important things to work on (performance, database operations, etc). And before we can do this for all users, Dedicated Plans are an option for users that really need it now.

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Can you give a rough timeline for this? Would this be possible before end of year or are we looking at 2018?

We can’t commit to a timeline with certainty, so I’d rather not. Again, Dedicated plans can do this now if you’re compliance-sensitive now.

Once your data is on an EU server, how do you prevent it from being accessed from outside the EU ?

Personally, I think server location is a distraction (unless you are a bank etc) and what you need to consider is who is accessing the data and where they are.

I work for a top HR BPO company that handles sensitive PII and I can assure you that location and access are equally important. Some clients demand per contract for the servers to be located in EU and other demand for the location and access to be in EU, or in other words no piece of PII can be accessed or stored out of EU. This is a very common setup in the industry and a potential “dozen of millions” deal breaker. It’s not something to take lightly believe me :slight_smile:

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What clients demand, and what is actually required by the EU directives are not necessarily the same.

It is data transfer that is key, not storage. As per Principle 8 of the DPA in the UK.

Yes, storage requires transfer. So it does make sense to keep storage and access tight.

But simply keeping your data in the UK on a Rackspace server doesn’t automatically make you compliant with Principle 8.

If your data is transferred outside the EU, then you need to think about compliance where it is accessed. The fact that it is on a server in California is likely to be fairly easy to sort. Even in a post Schrems EU.

Of course the reverse is also true, as an EU software provider I have often had issues with US companies wanting their data to be back home … Where it can be snooped on ! And no amount of arguing that their data might be safer in, say, Germany (which is the strictest regime I have worked with) would make any difference.

But for the majority of Bubble development, I would still say that either US hosting is largely get-roundable (either explicitly nor implicitly or both) or you are at enterprise level and would be on a dedicated server anyway.

You are very right Nigel, but that doesn’t mean per se that you are making me wrong. You are just complementing with additional data and your opinion what I just said.

Nonetheless, we would really like to have an option in EU for shared plans. I think that has already been made clear by quite a few from us and, again, it’s industry standard if you want to market your this type of product to EU. Maybe it’s not part of the strategy. In that case we would love to know if that is the case.

Add to the privacy/compliance issue around 200ms average less latency, the selling point for our clients that their data is stored in EU and less paperwork for us.

The problem for us is not paying dedicated. If the product we build is worth it and we find clients that will pay for it going dedicated is not an issue.

The problem is the gap between shared pricing and location and dedicated pricing and location.

Bubble is marketed as MVP solution or a lot of us see it like that. Depending on the scope and load some will stay in Bubblr and other eventually will have to move to custom solutions.

Shared pricing for an MVP is OK. Dedicated is way too much.

But some of us require traction in our MVP to go from shared to dedicated. But no traction will be possible if clients keep bringing up the privacy/compliance issue.

No EU. No clients. No traction. No Dedicated.

See the gap?

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Hi Emmanuel,

is it possible to get a service located in Germany for dedicated plans?

Yes, Frankfurt is an option. Reach out to support@bubble.is if you want to talk about it.

@ryanck Fancy sharing my EU based dedicated server? Happy to share with another user, lots of capacity. Stability is 100%

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@gregjohnkeegan Hahaha. You´ve read my mind. That´s what I thought yesterday, we could share a dedicated server in the EU. I´ll be interested.

Maybe someone else too?

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I think that everything has already been said, we definitly need a solution compliant with EU privacy rules!
The main point is indeed : no eu -> no clients -> no income -> no dedicated…
It would be quite interesting to know how many people using Bubble are actually targeting EU.

In the meaning time, it seems that the EU aknowledged that data transfered to the US is safe, following the “Privacy Shield” agreement signed in August 2016 (see this map, sorry it is in french, blue means OK: https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la-protection-des-donnees-dans-le-monde)

However, I could not find Bubble on the Privacy Shield list (https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant_search)
Emmanuel, did you look at the Privacy Shield registration before ?

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Im testing Bubble out at the moment as well and would love to have EU (from the UK so hopefully after we leave the EU we can still store data in the EU without too much trouble!). But alot of the ideas that I have would revolve around the EU / UK & US so having the ability to move to an EU / UK shard would be great, however I’m not up to the point where I could have a dedicated only been using bubble for a week or so but I could definitely see this being a must for any product that is going to go to market.

This is on our list of things to investigate, as it is often the case with legal stuff, it needs to be done carefully.

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:fearful:

I try not to even think about that :slight_smile:

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hehe yup bit of a strange place to be at the moment!