← Agent Tool Showdown · Best vibe coding tools
Lovable vs Bolt.new vs v0 vs Replit Agent
Four popular “describe it and the AI builds it” tools, compared in plain English for beginners and vibe coders. Every price and limit below comes from each tool’s own pricing page or docs, checked on 2026-10-26. Where the official pages don’t say, we write unknown instead of guessing. Prices are in US dollars and change often, so check the linked source before you pay.
Which one should I pick?
| If you… | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| I have never coded and want a web app with log-ins and saved data | Lovable | Built around beginners: chat in, full web app out. |
| I want a real phone app (iPhone / Android) | Replit Agent | Native mobile apps are a documented, built-in path. Bolt.new can do it too via Expo, with more setup. Both need paid Apple / Google developer accounts to publish. |
| I just want a website online quickly, free | Bolt.new | Biggest stated free allowance (1M tokens/month) and free hosting, with a Bolt badge. |
| I want a polished React front end a developer can take over | v0 by Vercel | Clean Next.js code and one-click Vercel deploys; a bit more technical. |
| I want the cheapest paid plan | Replit Agent or Bolt.new | Replit Core $20/month; Bolt Pro $18/month if you pay yearly. Lovable Pro is $25, v0 Plus $30. |
A tip for all four: each one charges you while the AI fixes its own mistakes. If a fix fails twice, stop, roll back to a working version and ask in a different way. Bolt’s own docs give the same advice.
At a glance
| Lovable | Bolt.new | v0 by Vercel | Replit Agent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Builds | Web apps | Web apps + iOS/Android (Expo) | Web apps (React/Next.js) | Web apps + iOS/Android (Expo) |
| Native phone apps | unknown | Yes | unknown | Yes |
| Free tier | 5 credits/day, max 30/month | 1M tokens/month (300K/day) | 7 messages/day + $5 one-time | Daily credits, monthly cap unknown; 1 app for 30 days |
| Cheapest paid plan | Pro $25/mo ($21/mo yearly) | Pro $25/mo ($18/mo yearly) | Plus $30/user/mo | Core $20/mo (~$17–18/mo yearly) |
| Pays by | Credits | Tokens | Credits (by tokens) | Credits (by effort) |
Lovable
What it’s for: You describe an app in plain English and Lovable builds a full web app for you: the pages, the database, user log-ins and the code behind them. Its docs say no technical knowledge is needed.
Who it suits: Complete beginners who want a working web app (with sign-ups and saved data) without touching code.
Where you use it: You build in the web browser, the desktop app, or the Lovable app for iOS and Android.
What you get: Web apps. Native App Store / Google Play apps: unknown (not mentioned in the official docs we checked).
Free tier: 5 build credits per day, capped at 30 per month (after that you wait until the 1st), plus small monthly allowances for Lovable Cloud and AI.
Cheapest paid plan: Pro: $25/month for 100 credits, or $250/year (about $21/month).
Students get 50% off. You can sync your code to GitHub and you own it.
Top complaints from real users
- Credits burn in “fix loops”: a small tweak breaks other things and users spend several messages undoing it (Sep 2026). Source
- Users report that simple edits started costing noticeably more credits than before (Apr–May 2026). Source
- A helper who repairs Lovable projects says many “finished” apps had database security (Supabase row-level security) missing or misconfigured (Mar 2026). Source
Official sources (checked 2026-10-26): Pricing · Plans (docs) · Credits (docs) · Mobile app (docs) · Our Lovable page
Bolt.new
What it’s for: A chat-to-app builder that runs in your browser. You ask for a website or app, Bolt writes the code, shows a live preview and can host it for you.
Who it suits: Beginners who want a website or web app online fast, and tinkerers who want to try a phone app too.
Where you use it: Runs in the web browser (desktop or phone browser). Nothing to install.
What you get: Websites and web apps; also iOS and Android apps via Expo. Publishing to the app stores needs extra setup (Node, Git, an Expo account) and paid Apple / Google developer accounts.
Free tier: 1M tokens per month, max 300K per day. “Made in Bolt” badge on your site, no custom domain, free bolt.host hosting with limits (10 GB bandwidth and about 333K requests a month, after that the site goes offline until next month).
Cheapest paid plan: Pro: $25/month for 10M tokens, or $18/month billed yearly ($216/year). Removes the badge, adds your own domain.
A cheaper “Lite” plan ($9/month) exists, but only via a waitlist and only with open-source models. Bolt’s docs say bigger projects use more tokens per message.
Top complaints from real users
- Once a project gets big, users say Bolt loses track of what it built, duplicates parts and hits “project too large” errors (Jun 2026). Source
- Fixing one bug can bring back an old one; one user says they burned half a month of tokens in a day on a single bug (Jul 2026). Source
- Users report spending millions of tokens while Bolt loops on the same error (Jan 2025, older but still a common theme). Source
Official sources (checked 2026-10-26): Pricing · Billing (docs) · Intro (docs) · Mobile via Expo (docs) · Our Bolt.new page
v0 by Vercel
What it’s for: Vercel’s AI builder for web apps, dashboards and sites. It writes modern React / Next.js code and publishes to Vercel in one click.
Who it suits: People who care about a polished web front end and may later hand the code to a developer. Its docs say it is for developers, designers and product teams, so it is a bit more technical.
Where you use it: Web browser, plus an iOS app for building on the go.
What you get: Web apps and sites (Next.js / React). Native App Store / Google Play apps: unknown (not mentioned in the official docs we checked).
Free tier: $0 with a limit of 7 messages per day, and $5 of one-time credits for new users. Deploy to Vercel and GitHub sync included.
Cheapest paid plan: Plus: $30 per user/month, with $30 of monthly credits plus $2 of free credits each day you log in. (The older $20 Premium plan is being phased out and is not open to new users.)
Usage is charged by AI tokens, so the cost per message depends on the model and how big the project is.
Top complaints from real users
- In January 2026 users reported credits draining roughly 10x faster than before, with simple prompts costing dollars (Vercel’s own forum). Source
- Users say they were still charged when a task failed or timed out without finishing (same thread, Jan 2026). Source
- Generation costs jumped after a mid-January update; Vercel staff suggested asking for refunds (Jan 2026). Source
Official sources (checked 2026-10-26): Pricing · Docs · Pricing (docs) · FAQs (docs) · Our v0 by Vercel page
Replit Agent
What it’s for: Replit is an online coding workspace; its Agent builds apps from a chat, runs them and publishes them, all in the browser.
Who it suits: Beginners who want both web and real phone apps, and people who want to peek at (and learn from) the code as it is built.
Where you use it: Web browser (plus Replit’s own apps).
What you get: Web apps and native iOS / Android apps (built with Expo, tested on your phone with Expo Go, with a path to TestFlight / the App Store). Core also unlocks other types like data visualisations and slide decks.
Free tier: Starter plan: daily Agent credits up to a monthly cap (exact amount: unknown, not stated), limited “Lite” builds only, and 1 published app that goes down after 30 days and shows a “Made with Replit” badge.
Cheapest paid plan: Core: $20/month including $20 of monthly credits. Yearly: the pricing page says $18/month billed yearly, while Replit’s help docs say $204/year (about $17/month), so the exact yearly price is unclear.
Agent charges by effort, so one request can cost more or less depending on how much work it does.
Top complaints from real users
- Effort-based pricing made costs hard to predict; users report the same prompt costing several times more than before (Jul 2025). Source
- Users say they pay for checkpoints that did not work and then have to revert (Jul 2025). Source
- A self-described beginner reports $355 in Agent charges in 10 days from runaway usage (2026). Source
Official sources (checked 2026-10-26): Pricing · Starter plan (docs) · Core plan (docs) · Pricing help (docs) · Mobile apps (docs) · Our Replit Agent page
How we made this
We read each tool’s official pricing page and help docs on 2026-10-26 and copied only what they state. Complaints are summarised in our own words from public posts on Reddit and the Vercel community forum. They are individual experiences, not tests we ran, and some are older than this page. Nobody paid for placement. How rankings & ads work