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Lovable

The most recommended of 14 AI app builders

Lets people without coding experience turn ideas into working apps quickly, with hosting, login and payments included. Critics warn that generated apps can have security and maintenance problems.

Lets people without coding experience turn ideas into working apps quickly, with hosting, login and payments included. Critics warn that generated apps can have security and maintenance problems.

150 people gave an opinion

recommend it
73
criticize it
77
approval share
49%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 11 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: recommended
  2. December 2025: recommended
  3. January 2026: recommended
  4. February 2026: recommended
  5. March 2026: recommended
  6. April 2026: recommended
  7. May 2026: recommended
  8. June 2026: not recommended
  9. July 2026: recommended
  10. August 2026: recommended
  11. September 2026: recommended
  12. October 2026: recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Why it doesn’t carry the badge

  • 73 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
  • 0.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
  • Recommended in 11 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

  • Lets non-developers build software

    “It serves a market of non technical people that want to build apps and websites without having to use something horrible like Wordpress.”

    Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

    “You want a tool that's specifically aimed at people who want to build software but don't know the first thing about how to do it.”

    Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “LLMs reward expertise”

    “enabling people who don't have software engineering or code writing experience to actually develop software is a value in itself”

    Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Has vibecoding produced anything of substance, or investibility yet?”
  • Fast from idea to working app

    “Lovable is the fastest way to get a log-in system and database, so a great option for a true MVP.”

    Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

    “It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly.”

    Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

    “It really works -- 1200 customers are now vibe coding daily and using their SaaS a LOT more.”

    Comment from 1 Apr 2026 in “Apple Removes iPhone Vibe Coding App from App Store”
  • Built-in publishing, domain and payments

    “it's the easiest way to do everything from publish, custom domain, payment, backend deployment, email”

    Comment from 14 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

    “Lovable is easier to do everything from publish, custom domain, payment”

    Comment from 14 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”
  • Cleaner code than rival builders

    “lovable seems to be more precise about the code itself: just cleaner even over several iterations”

    Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Extracting React apps from Figma Make's undocumented binary format”

    “I get much better outcome from Lovable than Replit using same prompts”

    Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “He was called a 'terrorist sympathizer.' Now his AI company is valued at $3B”

What people warn about

Each mark is one comment

  • Security and backend weaknesses

    “Both the free and paid tiers of lovable don't charge for security fixes, and before you can publish it requests you run security audits.”

    Comment from 22 Dec 2025 in “Your Supabase is public if you turn off RLS”

    “they tend to build stuff with some botched backend and you'll get to scaling issues, security issues and who knows what else”

    Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “AI is going to kill app subscriptions”

    “Lovable is marketed to non developers, so their core users wouldn't understand a security flow if it flashed red.”

    Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Vibe coded Lovable-hosted app littered with basic flaws exposed 18K users”
  • Hard to maintain and debug

    “If you don't understand what you have the LLMs actually build, then there is no way you can maintain it or debug it if something goes wrong”

    Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “Explaining to business people why building software is still hard”

    “No-code builders are great for the first version but start fighting you when you need custom logic”

    Comment from 1 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Drag/drop your site's user navigation map, export to code in seconds”
  • Lock-in to proprietary platform

    “tools-outside-ai-inside platforms like Lovable, Base44 and Replit which don't leave as much flexibility in terms of swapping out tooling”

    Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Anthropic Made a Big Mistake”

    “vibe coding platforms like lovable, which contain an unavoidable proprietary infrastructure component”

    Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap”
  • Expensive builds and unclear moat

    “once you cross a certain point with your app-building, it simply becomes too expensive, and complex to continue build on manually”

    Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

    “what's the moat for lovable? you can already directly prompt these models to build you a full fledged app”

    Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

    “Instead of employing an engineer for a year we burned an obscene amount of resources to generate code”

    Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “$85,000 in tokens later: What I learned from scaling agentic coding at Lovable”

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.

Lovable compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
LovableThis page737749%11——
Replit513957%119 mo3 owners—
Squarespace232350%11——
Bolt.new201459%9——
v0 by Vercel191163%9——
See all 14 AI app builders, ranked

What people said

40 of the 167 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“If you don't understand what you have the LLMs actually build, then there is no way you can maintain it or debug it if something goes wrong”

CriticizesComment from 22 Sep 2026 in “Explaining to business people why building software is still hard”

“we are the best way for non-technical people go from idea to a real software business with paying users”

RecommendsComment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2026)”

“We chose not to use tools like Lovable or Emergent because we didn't want to connect yet another database”

MixedComment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Slack Search Sucks [video]”

“less technical people LOVE using it and have zero issue paying for it”

RecommendsComment from 2 Sep 2026 in “How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?”

“Lovable is easier to do everything from publish, custom domain, payment”

RecommendsComment from 14 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“it's the easiest way to do everything from publish, custom domain, payment, backend deployment, email”

RecommendsComment from 14 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“It serves a market of non technical people that want to build apps and websites without having to use something horrible like Wordpress.”

MixedComment from 13 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“I saw it int he wild and compared to all the internal software I saw in the past 20 years”

MixedComment from 13 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“Those apps they were using were better than 90% of internal apps I've seen in my career.”

RecommendsComment from 13 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly.”

RecommendsComment from 13 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“once you cross a certain point with your app-building, it simply becomes too expensive, and complex to continue build on manually”

CriticizesComment from 13 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“Lovable, and companies like it, have enabled someone to accomplish things that they couldn't before.”

MixedComment from 13 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“what's the moat for lovable? you can already directly prompt these models to build you a full fledged app”

CriticizesComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“most solo devs would be better served by using Lovable than Codex or Claude”

RecommendsComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“Lovable is the fastest way to get a log-in system and database, so a great option for a true MVP.”

RecommendsComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“I have seen those people be supercharged by AI app builders like Replit and Lovable”

MixedComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025”

“when I know much better tools exist that are built with people like them in mind”

RecommendsComment from 4 Aug 2026 in “LLMs reward expertise”

“You want a tool that's specifically aimed at people who want to build software but don't know the first thing about how to do it.”

RecommendsComment from 4 Aug 2026 in “LLMs reward expertise”

“You can do this in lovable too now. But i dont think it gets used a lot.”

MixedComment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Prized (YC S26) – Let non-engineer staff build secure internal tools”

“I don’t count Lovable or Figma html2figma plugin or figma2code plugin etc.”

MixedComment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Hallmark – Anti-AI-Slop Design Skill for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex”

“Instead of employing an engineer for a year we burned an obscene amount of resources to generate code”

CriticizesComment from 5 Jul 2026 in “$85,000 in tokens later: What I learned from scaling agentic coding at Lovable”

“they just don't have the time or interest to spend hours on building some little marketing site”

MixedComment from 4 Apr 2026 in “The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS”

“It really works -- 1200 customers are now vibe coding daily and using their SaaS a LOT more.”

RecommendsComment from 1 Apr 2026 in “Apple Removes iPhone Vibe Coding App from App Store”

“Lovable know "how" to build dashboard, so it's about telling it what you'd like to see/learn about.”

RecommendsComment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: I made my fitness dashboard public and Apple Health needs an API”

“enabling people who don't have software engineering or code writing experience to actually develop software is a value in itself”

RecommendsComment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Has vibecoding produced anything of substance, or investibility yet?”

“Vibe coding tools like Lovable finally gave us the right way to make that real.”

RecommendsComment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Bring your own UI to telemetry data with Bronto and Lovable”

“No-code builders are great for the first version but start fighting you when you need custom logic”

MixedComment from 1 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Drag/drop your site's user navigation map, export to code in seconds”

“the app is partially an experiment of how many lovable AI tokens I can throw at this”

MixedComment from 28 Feb 2026 in “I built a startup game because I wanted one to play”

“Lovable is marketed to non developers, so their core users wouldn't understand a security flow if it flashed red.”

CriticizesComment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Vibe coded Lovable-hosted app littered with basic flaws exposed 18K users”

“When this works, it is really nice. Think Cursor, Lovable, or OpenClaw.”

RecommendsComment from 17 Feb 2026 in “AI is destroying Open Source, and it's not even good yet”

“they tend to build stuff with some botched backend and you'll get to scaling issues, security issues and who knows what else”

CriticizesComment from 15 Feb 2026 in “AI is going to kill app subscriptions”

“No need to wait designer, no need to get access to Figma, let designer design and present”

RecommendsComment from 5 Feb 2026 in “OpenAI Frontier”

“I still see huge value in using tools like Lovable to build a working prototype”

RecommendsComment from 5 Feb 2026 in “AI Is Killing B2B SaaS”

“vibe coding platforms like lovable, which contain an unavoidable proprietary infrastructure component”

CriticizesComment from 2 Feb 2026 in “FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap”

“lovable seems to be more precise about the code itself: just cleaner even over several iterations”

RecommendsComment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Extracting React apps from Figma Make's undocumented binary format”

“genuinely impressed with what it can do in a single prompt”

RecommendsComment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Lovable for Enterprise Software”

“tools-outside-ai-inside platforms like Lovable, Base44 and Replit which don't leave as much flexibility in terms of swapping out tooling”

CriticizesComment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Anthropic Made a Big Mistake”

“I get much better outcome from Lovable than Replit using same prompts”

RecommendsComment from 9 Jan 2026 in “He was called a 'terrorist sympathizer.' Now his AI company is valued at $3B”

“Both the free and paid tiers of lovable don't charge for security fixes, and before you can publish it requests you run security audits.”

MixedComment from 22 Dec 2025 in “Your Supabase is public if you turn off RLS”

“Lovable was able to one-shot it (except for the top margin)”

RecommendsComment from 8 Dec 2025 in “I failed to recreate the 1996 Space Jam website with Claude”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.