Vibe coding tools

Six platforms,
six different walls.

Every vibe coding tool takes you somewhere different, and leaves you in a different place. Below: what they are, what they are good at and where projects get stuck with them, written by someone who takes over and finishes projects from all five platforms, not by someone with an affiliate link attached.

Lovable

What it is: Builds a complete app with screens, database and logins from a chat conversation.
Strong at: From nothing to something that looks finished. For non-technical founders the shortest route to something demonstrable.
Gets stuck on: It runs on their platform and their account. The moment you want your own domain, your own hosting or anything off the beaten path, the real work starts.

Bolt.new

What it is: Builds and runs your project in an environment that lives entirely in your browser tab.
Strong at: Speed and immediacy. You see what you get straight away, without installing anything at all.
Gets stuck on: That browser environment is not a server. Everything that has to happen in the background, sending mail, processing a webhook, scheduling a task, stops there.

v0

What it is: Generates mostly screens and components, from Vercel, close to React and Next.js.
Strong at: By far the best-looking result per prompt. For the front of a product this is the strongest tool in the list.
Gets stuck on: It is a screen builder, not a product builder. Your data, your permissions and your logic have to come from somewhere else, and that is exactly the part that takes the time.

Replit

What it is: A complete development environment in the browser, including hosting and an agent that builds for you.
Strong at: Everything in one place, including going live. You need no laptop that has been set up, and that removes a barrier many people never cross.
Gets stuck on: One environment for testing and real use, and a setup that is hard to take elsewhere. Growing here almost always means moving.

Cursor

What it is: A real code editor with an AI model that can work across your whole project.
Strong at: The most control in the list. Anyone who does read what happens builds serious software with it.
Gets stuck on: That same freedom: nothing stops you on migrations, permissions or secrets in your code. What you do not know has to happen, does not happen.

Claude Code

What it is: An AI that works in your codebase from the command line, reading, changing and testing.
Strong at: Overview across larger projects and work that touches multiple files. Strong at understanding code that already exists.
Gets stuck on: It assumes you are watching and judging. Without that reading moment you get the same result as with any other tool, only faster.

Tool	What it is	Strong at	Gets stuck on
Lovable	Builds a complete app with screens, database and logins from a chat conversation.	From nothing to something that looks finished. For non-technical founders the shortest route to something demonstrable.	It runs on their platform and their account. The moment you want your own domain, your own hosting or anything off the beaten path, the real work starts.
Bolt.new	Builds and runs your project in an environment that lives entirely in your browser tab.	Speed and immediacy. You see what you get straight away, without installing anything at all.	That browser environment is not a server. Everything that has to happen in the background, sending mail, processing a webhook, scheduling a task, stops there.
v0	Generates mostly screens and components, from Vercel, close to React and Next.js.	By far the best-looking result per prompt. For the front of a product this is the strongest tool in the list.	It is a screen builder, not a product builder. Your data, your permissions and your logic have to come from somewhere else, and that is exactly the part that takes the time.
Replit	A complete development environment in the browser, including hosting and an agent that builds for you.	Everything in one place, including going live. You need no laptop that has been set up, and that removes a barrier many people never cross.	One environment for testing and real use, and a setup that is hard to take elsewhere. Growing here almost always means moving.
Cursor	A real code editor with an AI model that can work across your whole project.	The most control in the list. Anyone who does read what happens builds serious software with it.	That same freedom: nothing stops you on migrations, permissions or secrets in your code. What you do not know has to happen, does not happen.
Claude Code	An AI that works in your codebase from the command line, reading, changing and testing.	Overview across larger projects and work that touches multiple files. Strong at understanding code that already exists.	It assumes you are watching and judging. Without that reading moment you get the same result as with any other tool, only faster.

The tool names link through to what goes wrong per platform at the step to production. Features and prices are deliberately absent: those change every month, the place a tool leaves you hardly ever does.

Which one do you pick

Start from where you want to go,
not from the tool.

Do you want to show something this week

Lovable or Bolt. You install nothing and within a day you have something people can click. Put no real customer data in it and you cannot break anything.

Do you mostly want good-looking screens

v0, and accept that you arrange the back end separately. That is not a shortcoming but a choice by the makers: it is deliberately a screen builder.

Do you want it to be able to grow somewhere

Cursor or Claude Code, in an ordinary codebase on your own machine, with version control from day one. Steeper start, but you are tied to nothing.

Do you already have something customers use

Then the tool is no longer your biggest question. What counts then is security, permissions and a test environment, and none of the six give you those by themselves.

Not sure what the term means yet, then start at what vibe coding is. Already past the point where the tool is your question, then it is about making it production-ready.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best vibe coding tool?

That depends on where you are. If you want something demonstrable fast without technical knowledge, Lovable or Bolt get furthest. If you mostly want good screens, v0. If you want software that can grow and that you can take with you, Cursor or Claude Code in an ordinary codebase. There is no tool that does all three well at once.

What is the difference between Lovable and Cursor?

Lovable builds the app for you on their platform, aimed at people without a programming background; you steer through a conversation. Cursor is a code editor with AI in it, aimed at people who do see and judge the code. Lovable gets you to a demo faster, Cursor gets you further when it becomes serious.

Can I switch tools once I have started?

Usually yes, because most platforms can export to GitHub. What does not move along are your database, your keys and everything you configured in the tool itself. Do it sooner rather than later: the more screens there are, the more has to come along.

Which tool is the safest?

None of them, and that is not the tools' fault. The mistakes that are in there by default, secret keys the browser sends along and a database without per-row permissions, come from the way of working, not from the choice of platform. In every case you have to have them checked yourself.

Do you use one of these tools yourself?

I work in an ordinary Next.js codebase and use AI tooling inside it, reading and judging what comes out. What I do with the tools in this list is take over projects that started with them and now have to become production-ready.

Let's build

Tell me what you
want to build.

A half-hour call. You get an honest answer about what it costs, how long it takes and whether building it is smart at all.

bas@webframer.nl +31 6 47 00 62 07

Six platforms,six different walls.