How to build a leaderboard in Bubble

A simple leaderboard in Bubble is just a repeating group that displays Users (or another data type) sorted by a score field. You store each user’s score in the database, update it when needed, and show a repeating group with a Do a search for sorted descending by that score. That’s it — the rest is UI and workflow logic.

Data Setup

You need a User data type with a field that can be ranked. Example: a field called points (Number). Bubble automatically stores this per user. You will update this field whenever the user earns points.

• Keep it as Number so you can sort it easily.
• You don’t need a separate ranking field; Bubble calculates order through sorting.

Updating the Score

Use a workflow action Make changes to thing on the current user (or any user) whenever points change. Example:

// Example: awarding 10 points
Make changes to Current User:
points = Current User's points + 10

This keeps the leaderboard live because Bubble reads from the database each time.

Building the Leaderboard UI

Create a Repeating Group on a page. This repeating group will display users sorted by points.

• Type of content: User
• Data source: Do a search for Users
• In the search, use Sort by = points (descending) so highest score appears first.

Inside the repeating group, place text elements such as:

• Current cell User’s name
• Current cell User’s points
• Optionally: Current cell’s index + 1 to show rank

Privacy Rules

Open Data > Privacy and allow other users to see the fields needed for the leaderboard. Example:

• Allow viewing name
• Allow viewing points

If privacy rules block these fields, the repeating group will show empty rows.

Optional Improvements

• Real-time updates: Bubble automatically updates repeating groups when the database changes.
• Filters: You can restrict the search to users in a certain group, team, or level.
• Performance: If you have thousands of users, add constraints to the search or use backend workflows to maintain a lightweight “Leaderboard Entry” data type.