AI app builders let you describe an app in plain language and have the AI build it: the screens, the backend, the database and usually the hosting. This guide compares nine of them on facts you can check. Every price and feature below comes from the vendor's own pricing page or docs, checked on October 11, 2026, and every claim links to its source.
How we compared: we did not run timed builds or score output quality, so there is no "winner" score here. Instead we compared what each plan actually gives you, and picked the best fit for common situations. ZBuild is our product; it is covered in its own section at the end, with the same kind of facts.
The short list
- Most established web app builder: Lovable
- Free to use, with free publishing: Google AI Studio (Build mode)
- Cheapest paid entry: Bolt.new Lite at $9/month (open models only)
- Full cloud workspace and a wide choice of models: Replit
- React and Next.js teams on Vercel: v0
- Business apps with built-in auth and payments: Base44
- Mobile apps (React Native): Emergent or Anything
Comparison table
| Builder | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan (monthly) | Backend and database | Publishing | Mobile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lovable | 5 credits a day (max 30 a month) | Pro from $25 (100 credits) | Yes | Yes | Web apps |
| Bolt.new | 1M tokens a month | Lite $9 (Forge agent only); Pro $25 | Yes, unlimited databases | Yes, hosting included | Not documented |
| Replit | Starter: daily Agent credits | Core $20 | Yes | Yes (Starter: 1 app, taken down after 30 days) | Web and mobile apps |
| v0 | 7 messages a day + $5 credits once | Plus $30 per user | Full-stack apps; connects to databases | Deploy to Vercel | Not documented |
| Base44 | 25 message credits a month, up to 5 apps | Starter $20 | Yes, plus auth and payments | Yes, *.base44.app; own domain from Starter | Web app wrapped for stores (Builder+) |
| Google AI Studio | Free to use (limits not published) | No plan of its own; Google AI Pro $19.99 raises limits | Yes: Node.js, Firestore, Google sign-in | Cloud Run; 2 apps without billing (eligible accounts) | Native Android (Kotlin) |
| Emergent | 10 credits | Standard $20 (100 credits) | Yes, MongoDB | Paid plans; hosting costs 50+ credits a month per app | React Native; store builds on paid plans |
| Anything | No building on Free | Pro $24 (20k credits) | Yes, PostgreSQL | Yes, *.created.app; own domain on Pro | React Native; iOS via TestFlight |
| ZBuild (our product) | Plan the app with the AI; no building | Lite $9 (900 credits) | Yes | Live preview only; no public URL yet | Mobile-style web apps |
Credits are not comparable between products: each one counts usage differently. Compare the monthly price you are willing to pay and what the free plan lets you try.
Lovable
Lovable describes itself as "an AI software engineer" that lets anyone build websites and web apps by chatting. It is the largest company in this list: $400M raised at a $13.3B valuation in August 2026 (Series C post) and over $500M in annualized revenue in June 2026 (TechCrunch).
- Free: 5 build credits a day, capped at 30 a month, plus 20 Cloud credits a month.
- Paid: Pro from $25/month for 100 credits (tiers up to $2,250/month for 10,000 credits); Business from $50/month adds SSO, roles and internal publishing. Every plan includes unlimited members (plans and credits).
- Models: no model picker for building; a "control plane" routes work to different models, including Lovable's own post-trained models (blog).
- Recent additions: payments, SEO and AI-search tools, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce and Stripe integrations, and automatic security scanning.
Best for: non-coders who want to try for free and then publish a web app with business integrations.
Bolt.new
Bolt.new, built by StackBlitz, says it creates "stunning apps & websites by chatting with AI", with hosting, databases, auth and SEO built in.
- Free: 1M tokens a month (300K a day), public and private projects, website hosting and unlimited databases, with Bolt branding. Only the Standard agent.
- Paid: Pro $25/month (about $18/month billed yearly) starting at 10M tokens with no daily limit, custom domains and no branding. Teams $30 per member. Bolt Lite at $9/month gives only the Forge agent (Forge docs).
- Models: three agents, Standard, Max and Forge. Bolt "handles model selection behind the scenes" for Standard and Max; Forge runs only on open models (GLM 5.3, Kimi K3, DeepSeek v4 Pro) as a research preview until October 14, 2026 (agents).
Best for: a generous free plan measured in tokens, and the cheapest paid entry if open models are enough.
Replit
Replit is a full cloud development environment with an AI agent. Agent 4, launched March 2026, builds web and mobile apps, designs, slides and data apps in one project, with parallel agents (announcement).
- Free (Starter): daily Agent credits up to a monthly cap, Free Mode with Starter limits, and one published app that goes down after 30 days (Starter plan).
- Paid: Core $20/month ($18 yearly) with up to 30 hours of Free Mode chat and $20 toward more powerful models; Pro $100/month with 10 parallel agents and 28-day database rollback.
- Free Mode (since August 18, 2026) lets everyday Agent tasks run without using credits (announcement).
- Models: a model selector with GPT-6 Sol, Claude Sonnet 5.5, Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Fable 5.1, Kimi K3 and others, rolling out by organization (model selector).
Best for: people who want to see and control the code and the environment, and pick their model.
v0
v0 by Vercel is "an AI agent that helps anyone create real code and full-stack apps and agents", with one-click deploys to Vercel or a pull request.
- Free: 7 messages a day and a one-time $5 credit; includes deploys to Vercel, Design Mode and GitHub sync.
- Paid: Plus $30 per user per month (with $30 of credits); Business $100 per user (pricing).
- Models: v0's own tiers (Mini, Pro, Max, Max Fast) plus Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol in the picker (changelog).
Best for: React and Next.js teams who already deploy on Vercel.
Base44
Base44 is owned by Wix, which bought it in 2025. Wix reported about $150M in Base44 annual recurring revenue as of May 2026 (Wix Q1 2026 results).
- Free: 25 message credits and 100 integration credits a month, up to 5 apps, with auth, database and analytics. Apps get a free
*.base44.appaddress. - Paid: Starter $20/month ($16 yearly) adds unlimited apps and your own domain; Builder $50 adds model choice and GitHub; Pro $100; Elite $200.
- Mobile: generates iOS and Android store files, but they are "a lightweight native wrapper around your web app", and downloading them needs Builder or higher (docs).
- Models: Auto mode, Base44's own Base 1 model (launched June 2026), and Claude, GPT and Gemini models on Builder and above (chat modes).
Best for: business apps that need logins, a database and payments with the least setup.
Google AI Studio (Build mode)
Firebase Studio is shutting down. Google disabled new workspaces and signups on June 22, 2026 and will delete remaining data on March 22, 2027 (migration guide). For building from a prompt, Google now points to the Build mode in Google AI Studio.
- What it builds: full-stack web apps (React frontend by default, Node.js server), with Firestore and Firebase Authentication ("Sign in with Google"), and native Android apps in Kotlin.
- Free: "Google AI Studio usage is free of charge in all available regions" (pricing). Eligible accounts can publish up to 2 full-stack apps to Cloud Run without a billing account; after that, Cloud Run pricing may apply (deploying).
- Paid: no plan of its own; Google AI Pro ($19.99/month) and Ultra subscribers get higher AI Studio limits. The exact limits are not published.
- Note: Google canceled the AI Studio phone app it announced at I/O (9to5Google).
Best for: trying full-stack app building at no cost, if you are fine inside Google's stack.
Emergent
Emergent raised $130M at a $1.5B valuation in July 2026 and reported $120M in run-rate revenue and more than 200,000 paying customers (TechCrunch).
- Free: 10 credits (the pricing page says monthly; the help center says on your first day), workspace only, with no production publishing.
- Paid: Standard $20/month (100 credits); Pro $200/month (750 credits). Hosting costs credits every month: from 50 credits per published app on the smallest tier up to 1,100 (hosting tiers).
- What it builds: full-stack web apps on MongoDB, and mobile apps on Expo (React Native). Native App Store and Google Play builds need a paid plan and your own developer accounts (store publishing).
Best for: mobile apps headed for the app stores, if you budget for monthly hosting credits.
Anything
Anything (formerly Create, then createanything.com) builds React web apps and React Native mobile apps with a built-in PostgreSQL database, auth and Stripe or RevenueCat payments.
- Free: no building. The docs say "Building an app requires a paid plan"; earlier in 2026 the free plan included 3,000 credits (subscriptions).
- Paid: Pro $24/month ($19 yearly) for 20,000 credits, with custom domains; Max from $239/month ($199 yearly) for 220,000 credits.
- Mobile: iOS via TestFlight; Google Play publishing is in beta (mobile docs). Apple removed Anything's own iOS app from the App Store twice in spring 2026, and the company moved its phone builder to iMessage (TechCrunch).
Best for: mobile apps with payments built in.
ZBuild (our product)
Disclosure: ZBuild is our product. Here is what it does and does not do today, so you can compare it fairly.
- How it works: you describe the app, then the AI works out a plan with you: the pages, the data it stores and how it behaves. The AI then builds a full-stack web app (frontend, backend and database) in a cloud workspace with a live preview, and you keep changing it by chat. You can also start from code you upload.
- Free: chat with the AI and get the full plan. Building needs a paid plan.
- Paid: Lite $9/month (900 credits), Pro $25/month (2,500 credits), Max $99/month (9,900 credits); about 17–20% less billed yearly (pricing).
- Limits today: no one-click publishing to a public URL yet, no native mobile apps, and fewer integrations and team features than Lovable or Base44.
Best for: people who want to see a complete plan before paying, a low entry price, or to keep building on code they already have. For a detailed head-to-head, see ZBuild vs Lovable.
How to choose
| You want to... | Look at |
|---|---|
| Build something for free today | Lovable, Bolt.new, Google AI Studio |
| Publish a web app this week with payments | Lovable, Base44, Bolt.new |
| Ship to the App Store or Google Play | Emergent, Anything (React Native); Google AI Studio (Android) |
| Pick the model yourself | Replit, Base44 (Builder+), v0 |
| Stay inside Google Cloud and Firebase | Google AI Studio |
| Deploy React/Next.js on Vercel | v0 |
| See the full plan before paying | ZBuild |
Two things to check before you commit: whether you can export the code (Base44, Anything, Google AI Studio and v0 document export or GitHub sync), and what publishing costs each month after the build (Emergent charges hosting in credits; Google AI Studio moves to Cloud Run pricing after the free apps).
If you can read code, an AI coding tool may suit you better than an app builder; see our ranking of AI coding tools and the best free AI coding tools.
