- These four tools are not four answers to one question; they're answers to different questions
- v0: best-in-class React UI, no backend story
- Lovable: fastest full-stack web MVP, deep Supabase wiring, web only
- Bolt: browser IDE, most framework-flexible (Expo included), deployment is on you
- RapidNative: mobile-first; full React Native + Expo apps with the backend wired
- Disclosure up front: I work on RapidNative. The competitors' wins below are real wins.
The "AI app builder" category has exploded, and most comparisons read like feature-matrix theater. Having used all four of these for real projects (and shipping one of them), here's the honest version: each tool optimizes for a different job, and picking by hype instead of by job is how you lose a weekend.
v0 (Vercel)
v0 turns prompts into React components with shadcn/ui and Tailwind, and it produces the cleanest, most conventional UI code in the category. If you live in the Next.js/Vercel world, the design fidelity and deployment integration are genuinely excellent.
The boundary is just as clean: it's a frontend tool. No backend generation; your API routes, database, and auth are your problem. That's not a flaw, it's the product's shape.
Pick v0 when: the job is beautiful React UI inside a stack you already own.
Lovable
Lovable is the most complete prompt-to-web-app tool: frontend, Supabase database, auth, even RLS policies, wired together from a description. It's also the most accessible of the four for people who don't write code, which explains its trajectory.
The boundary: it generates web code. React for browsers, not React Native for phones. A Lovable app in a mobile webview is still a website.
Pick Lovable when: the job is a full-stack web MVP, fastest, especially if you're non-technical.
Bolt (StackBlitz)
Bolt gives you an AI pair inside a browser IDE, and it's the most framework-flexible of the group: React, Next.js, Svelte, Astro, and yes, Expo. For a technical user who wants direct code control and iteration speed in a tab, it's the strongest fit.
The mobile boundary is subtler here, and it's where I should be precise since this is my lane: Bolt can generate Expo projects, but mobile is one framework among many rather than the product's center of gravity, and getting from generated code to a store build (EAS setup, certificates, submission) is manual work it doesn't do for you.
Pick Bolt when: you're technical, want an in-browser IDE, and value flexibility across stacks.
RapidNative
Full disclosure again: this is the one I work on, so weigh accordingly.
RapidNative exists for one job: native mobile apps. Prompts, screenshots, PRDs, or sketches in; complete React Native + Expo + TypeScript projects out, with navigation, theming, and the Supabase backend wired, built as apps headed for the App Store and Play Store rather than as websites that might one day get wrapped. You export and own the code.
The honest boundaries: it's not the tool for a web SaaS (use Lovable), not a general-purpose IDE (use Bolt), and if your job is pixel-perfect web UI, v0 will out-design it. Mobile-first cuts both ways.
Pick RapidNative when: the deliverable is an iOS/Android app, not a website.
The actual decision
The category's dirty secret is that the web/mobile split matters more than any feature comparison. Almost every tool in this space builds web apps; if you're shipping to a browser, you have great options and this article barely matters. If you're shipping to the app stores, the field narrows sharply, and "supports Expo" and "built for Expo" are different products.
These tools also compose. Plenty of teams run Lovable or Bolt for their web app and RapidNative for the mobile app, same Supabase underneath. Treating this as a winner-take-all bracket is the feature-matrix brain talking.
Pricing, for completeness: all four land in the same rough $20-25/month ballpark for pro tiers as of writing, with credit systems that vary. Don't pick on price; at these numbers, one saved afternoon pays the annual difference.
The one-line version
Web UI: v0. Full-stack web, fastest: Lovable. Browser IDE with maximum flexibility: Bolt. Native mobile apps, end to end: RapidNative.
What are you building, and which of these did you end up on? Genuinely curious how the split looks in the comments, especially from anyone who's shipped with two of them.
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