Bolt.new
Ranked 4 of 14 AI app builders by recommenders
Fast AI app builder for prototypes and mockups. Critics say it stalls on harder work and has made destructive changes.
Fast AI app builder for prototypes and mockups. Critics say it stalls on harder work and has made destructive changes.
34 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 20
- criticize it
- 14
- approval share
- 59%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 20 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fast prototyping and 0-to-1 builds
“Replit and Bolt (and other similar tools) are quite good at this kind of 0->1 kind of thing”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “LLMs reward expertise” “Bolt (which is the tool I use for protyping) never gets mad me.”
Comment from 7 Jun 2026 in “I design with Claude more than Figma now” “I've been blown away by Cursor, Bolt, and Codex.”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Stop prompting. Let the AI interview you to build specs” Quick mockups and site redesigns
“a CEO who got a Bolt.new subscription to be able to generate some high-level mocks ups”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Codex, Opus, Gemini try to build Counter Strike” “You should redesign your site using vibe coding with Bolt or Lovable.”
Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “Launch a Secure and Scalable P2P Crypto Exchange Platform” Widely called the best product
“bolt is the best product out there”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025” “Bolt is what turned me onto it”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Stalls when pushed past basics
“got me moving fast, but stalled when I pushed it”
Comment from 2 May 2026 on Hacker News “After months of hitting a wall with Cursor and Bolt”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Why "Garbage In, Garbage Out" is the biggest bottleneck in AI coding”
Other AI app builders people recommend
The four most recommended other AI app builders, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lovable | 73 | 77 | 49% | 11 | — | — |
| Replit | 51 | 39 | 57% | 11 | 9 mo3 owners | — |
| Squarespace | 23 | 23 | 50% | 11 | — | — |
| Bolt.newThis page | 20 | 14 | 59% | 9 | — | — |
| v0 by Vercel | 19 | 11 | 63% | 9 | — | — |
What people said
34 of the 37 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The competitors inDrive, Bolt, or Yango almost always beat Uber on price”
“Bolt lost their license in Thailand due to poor safety tech after a Bolt driver”
“Bolt says it is in no way responsible for performance of the transport contract between you and the transport provider.”
“is often cheaper and faster so I usually check both”
“bolt is the best product out there”
“there were still glitches in unexpected places”
“it's still so much easier using grab/bolt/lineman/muvmi and not having to explain the directions”
“Replit and Bolt (and other similar tools) are quite good at this kind of 0->1 kind of thing”
“alongside windsurf & the replit/lovable/bolt cluster”
“Bolt was the root cause of the 73-hour Roblox downtime in 2021”
“Bolt (which is the tool I use for protyping) never gets mad me.”
“taxi services regulated by municipal governments were consistently treating their customers worse than Uber/Bolt”
“where you need the push for core services and then the provides use them to slip in spam”
“apple/google pay/ banks getting their act together leaves little space for a dedicated app”
“whose CEO is writing outlandish Linkedin posts to get attention to the failing company”
“due to ICF two different subclasses with two different functions shared the same address”
“got me moving fast, but stalled when I pushed it”
“arguably this still has issues with Uber/Bolt allowing you to choose bus stops as pickup spots”
“Bolt wanted recently my passport number to use their service”
“they just don't have the time or interest to spend hours on building some little marketing site”
“they optimize for "wow demo" over "this works tomorrow."”
“After months of hitting a wall with Cursor and Bolt”
“I've been blown away by Cursor, Bolt, and Codex.”
“Which is very cool but not accessible to everyone.”
“most of them are barely turning profitable after 10+ years”
“our workflow has sped up tremendously”
“I'm not sure how you sustain the valuations if the churn inherent to those type of”
“Bolt is what turned me onto it”
“it was amazing to see the code generation”
“You should redesign your site using vibe coding with Bolt or Lovable.”
“their platform making unauthorized, destructive changes that consumed all prepaid resources and delivered a fundamentally broken product”
“I have never once in my life used an AI product hosted at a .new domain”
“a CEO who got a Bolt.new subscription to be able to generate some high-level mocks ups”
“that just saved us months of back and forth.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.