Bubble and FlutterFlow are visual builders: someone on your team learns the editor and assembles the app screen by screen. AI app builders such as Lovable, Bolt, Replit and Base44 write the app from a plain-language request, but meter every attempt in credits or tokens. For a business team without developers, the deciding questions are who will do the building, how the bill grows, whether the people who only use the apps cost money, and who checks the result for security before staff rely on it.
If you are shopping for a way to build business apps without hiring developers, you will run into two families of tools. The first is the visual builders, led by Bubble and FlutterFlow, which have been around long enough to have large communities and plenty of tutorials. The second is the newer AI app builders, such as Lovable, Bolt, Replit and Base44, where you type what you want and the AI writes the app.
They look like competitors, but they are really different bets about who does the work. This guide compares them on the things that decide whether a business team succeeds: who has to learn what, how the price is built, what the meter counts, who pays when the app is rolled out, which admin and security features sit on higher tiers, and what has gone wrong in public. Every price below is as listed on each vendor's pricing page or plan documentation in October 2026.
Three different bets about who builds
Bubble is a visual editor for web apps (with mobile plans too). You design screens by dragging elements onto a canvas, define your data in tables, and wire up behavior with workflows, which are step-by-step rules such as "when this button is clicked, save the form and send an email." Nothing is written in code, but everything is assembled by hand.
FlutterFlow is a visual editor focused on mobile apps built with Flutter, Google's toolkit for apps that run on phones and the web from one design. Like Bubble, it removes typing code but keeps the developer's way of thinking: you still design screens, define data and connect logic yourself.
AI app builders flip the model. Instead of assembling the app, you describe it, and the AI generates screens, data and logic. You correct it by describing what is wrong. The editor is a conversation.
The practical difference is where the effort goes. With a visual builder, the effort goes into learning the tool. With an AI builder, the effort goes into describing the work clearly and checking that what came back is right.
Bubble in detail
What it is built for
Bubble suits a person who is willing to become the company's app builder. It rewards patience: once someone learns it, they can build fairly complex web apps, customer portals and internal tools. It does not suit a team that wants five different people to each build a tool for their own department next week.
How it is priced
Bubble prices each app, not each seat. As listed on Bubble's pricing page in October 2026, web plus mobile plans billed annually are:
- Starter: $59 a month, with 175K workload units a month
- Growth: $209 a month, with 250K workload units a month
- Team: $549 a month, with 500K workload units a month
Bubble's manual lists the month-to-month web plus mobile prices as $69, $249 and $649. Growth includes 2 app editors and Team includes 5, according to the pricing page.
What the meter charges for
The meter is the workload unit, Bubble's measure of how much server work an app does: reading and saving records, running workflows, calling other services. A plan includes a monthly amount, and the manual says overage is billed per extra 1,000 workload units. That means the bill follows how busy and how efficiently built your app is, not how many people use it.
When Bubble introduced workload unit pricing in April 2023, the change drew heavy pushback on its own forum, where users questioned whether the estimates matched what they were seeing. The lesson for any buyer is not that Bubble is bad. It is that a usage-based meter can be redefined after you have built on it, and that the app's efficiency, which a non-developer cannot easily judge, drives the bill.
FlutterFlow in detail
What it is built for
FlutterFlow suits teams that need a polished mobile app and have someone with a builder's mindset, often a technical founder, an agency, or a developer who wants to move faster. Its visual editor is powerful, and it assumes you understand app structure.
How it is priced
FlutterFlow's higher plans are priced per seat. As listed in FlutterFlow's plan comparison in October 2026, Business costs $150 a month for the first seat and $85 for each extra seat, up to five seats. Activity logging, which tracks project changes and who made them, is listed as an Enterprise feature.
What the meter charges for
Seats are the main cost, so the person paying is the person building. FlutterFlow lists no per-user charge for the people who use the finished app. Before you commit, ask where the finished app will run and who pays for that hosting and any backend services, because those costs belong in the comparison too.
AI app builders in detail
What they are built for
AI app builders are built for speed from a blank page. Describe a project tracker and you get a working first version in minutes. They suit founders, prototypers and anyone who can judge whether the result is right.
How they are priced
As listed in October 2026:
- Lovable: Pro starts at $25 a month for 100 credits ($21 a month billed annually), and Business starts at $50 a month for 100 credits ($42 billed annually), according to Lovable's plan documentation. Lovable does not charge per seat: its pricing page says workspaces support unlimited members and plans are priced by credits.
- Bolt: Pro is $25 a month starting at 10M tokens. Teams is $30 per member per month, and Bolt's pricing page says tokens are not shared between members.
- Replit: Core is $20 a month ($18 billed annually) and Pro is $100 a month ($90 billed annually). Replit's docs say Pro has no per-user fees and supports up to 15 builders on one plan.
- Base44: billed annually, $16, $40, $80 and $160 a month for Starter, Builder, Pro and Elite, with 100 to 1,200 message credits.
What the meter charges for
Credits and tokens are units of AI work. Every request to the AI uses some, including the requests where the AI fixes a bug it introduced. Lovable's pricing page says its credits pay for building, hosting with Lovable Cloud, and AI features inside your apps from one balance, so a busy app and a busy builder draw on the same pool. The result is a bill that depends on how many attempts the AI needs, which nobody can know in advance.
What has gone wrong in public
AI builders are fast, and speed without review has produced documented problems:
- Researcher Matt Palmer found 170 of 1,645 scanned Lovable apps (303 endpoints) exposed through missing database access rules in March 2025, recorded as CVE-2025-48757 with a severity score of 9.3, published May 2025. Lovable disputes the CVE, saying each customer is responsible for protecting their app's data.
- In July 2025, Fortune reported that a Replit agent wiped SaaStr's live database, holding data on more than 1,200 executives and over 1,190 companies, during a code freeze. Replit promised separation of development and production databases and a planning-only mode.
- Wiz found a Base44 flaw in July 2025 that let anyone with a public app ID register on private apps, bypassing single sign-on. It was fixed in under 24 hours with no evidence of exploitation.
- Escape analyzed over 5,600 publicly available vibe-coded apps in October 2025 and found more than 2,000 vulnerabilities and 400+ exposed secrets.
Each vendor responded, and several fixed issues quickly. The pattern still matters for a business: the AI writes the app, and somebody has to check it.
Side by side
| Bubble | FlutterFlow | AI app builders (Lovable, Bolt, Replit, Base44) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | A person who learns the visual editor | A person who learns the visual editor | The AI, from plain-language requests |
| Best fit | Web apps and portals with a dedicated builder | Polished mobile apps with a technical builder | Fast first versions and prototypes |
| Price unit (Oct 2026) | Per app: $59, $209, $549 a month billed annually | Per seat: Business $150 first seat, $85 each extra | Credits, tokens or messages, from $16 to $25 a month entry paid tiers |
| What the meter counts | Workload units of server activity | Seats | AI attempts, including fixes |
| People who only use apps | No per-user charge listed | No per-user charge listed | No per-user charge listed |
| Learning curve | Weeks to become fluent | Weeks to become fluent | Minutes to start, ongoing effort to verify |
| Security review of output | Up to the builder | Up to the builder | Up to the builder |
Admin and security features: where they sit
For a company, the features that matter are single sign-on (SSO, so staff log in with their work account), SCIM (automatic adding and removing of users when people join or leave), roles that limit who sees what, and audit logs (a record of who did what).
- Lovable: SSO starts at Business; SCIM and audit logs are Enterprise only, per its plan documentation.
- Replit: SSO, SCIM and audit logs are Enterprise only, per its pricing page.
- Bolt: SSO, audit logs and data retention policies are Enterprise features, per its pricing page.
- FlutterFlow: activity logging is Enterprise only, per its plan comparison.
- Bubble: ask Bubble's sales team which plan includes the sign-in and audit features your company needs, and get it in writing.
The common thread is that the controls a business needs on day one tend to sit on the tier most small teams do not buy.
A worked example
Here is an example to make the trade-offs concrete. A 25-person property management company wants three tools: a maintenance request tracker, a move-out inspection checklist and a vendor invoice approval flow. Two office managers would build; everyone else would only use the tools.
- With Bubble, one office manager spends several weeks learning the editor, then builds the three tools as one or more apps. Cost follows each app's plan and its workload units. If that person leaves, the next person has to learn the editor and the app's structure.
- With FlutterFlow, the mobile inspection checklist is a natural fit, but the office managers face the same learning curve, and someone still has to decide where the app runs and who maintains it.
- With an AI builder, each manager gets a first version in minutes. Then the iteration starts, and every correction draws credits. Nobody on staff can tell whether the database rules protect tenant records.
None of these paths is wrong for every company. But a team without developers needs a path where describing the work is enough, the cost is countable, and someone other than the office manager checks the security.
How to choose
- Name your builders. Write down who will build. If it is one dedicated person who wants to learn a tool, a visual builder can work. If it is several managers in different departments, a learning curve multiplies.
- List the people who will only use the apps. Count them. Then check each vendor's pricing page for any charge tied to app users or app activity.
- Ask what the meter counts. Workload, seats, tokens or credits. Ask the vendor how you would forecast next month's bill in one sentence.
- Check who pays for failed attempts. On credit-based tools, an AI's mistakes and its fixes both use credits. Ask whether failed work is charged.
- Find the tier with SSO, roles and audit logs. Price that tier, not the entry tier, because that is the plan a business actually needs.
- Ask who reviews security. Get a clear answer on whether anything is checked before an app holding customer or employee records goes live.
- Ask about onboarding. A tool your team never learns is the most expensive one. Ask whether the vendor helps you pick and build the first tools.
- Plan for the builder leaving. Ask how a second person picks up an app someone else built.
Where FORGE fits
FORGE is for business teams that want their own people to build tools by describing the work, without learning a visual editor and without a meter running on every attempt.
Your office manager, dispatcher or controller describes the tool in plain words. A panel of top AI models plans it, a dedicated AI crew builds it, and every piece is checked for quality and security before it is saved, with the tool checked at every step. Most teams have their first real tool the same day. FORGE builds web, mobile and desktop apps, so the inspection checklist and the approval flow come from the same place.
Every app lives inside your company. People join only by invite, and each person has a role (owner, admin, builder or app user) that decides what they can see and change. There is a complete record of who did what, so when someone leaves, the next person knows exactly how each tool got the way it is.
Pricing is built to be counted. It is $49 a seat a month for each person who builds, with 3 builds included. A change is a small fraction of a build and only counts when something actually changes. Extra builds come in packs of 10 for $150. People who only use the apps are free, a build FORGE fails is free, owners get alerts at 80 and 100 percent, and nothing ever bills by itself. Our team onboards you ourselves, starting with a workflow workshop on the work that costs you the most time.
If you are weighing Bubble, FlutterFlow and AI builders because you do not have developers, talk to us about your first three tools, or see how it works and pricing.
Questions people ask
Is Bubble or FlutterFlow easier for someone who has never built software?
Both are visual editors, so neither requires writing code, but both require learning how apps are put together: data types, screens, workflows and logic. Bubble is aimed mainly at web apps and FlutterFlow at mobile apps. Expect a real learning curve with either before the first tool is ready for staff.
How does Bubble pricing work?
Bubble prices each app, not each seat. As listed on Bubble's pricing page in October 2026, web plus mobile plans are $59, $209 and $549 a month billed annually for Starter, Growth and Team, with 175K, 250K and 500K workload units a month. Usage beyond that is billed per extra 1,000 workload units.
How does FlutterFlow pricing work?
FlutterFlow's higher plans are priced per seat. Its plan comparison lists Business at $150 a month for the first seat and $85 for each extra seat, up to five seats, as of October 2026. Activity logging is listed as an Enterprise feature.
Are AI app builders cheaper than Bubble or FlutterFlow?
The entry prices are lower: Lovable Pro starts at $25 a month and Bolt Pro at $25 a month as listed in October 2026. But AI builders meter every attempt in credits or tokens, so the real monthly cost depends on how many tries the AI needs, which is hard to forecast.
Do the people who use the apps cost extra on these platforms?
Bubble prices per app and lists no per-user charge, so cost scales with workload units rather than headcount. FlutterFlow, Lovable, Bolt, Replit and Base44 list no per-user charge for people who use the finished apps. Always confirm with the vendor before a wide rollout.
What is a workload unit?
A workload unit is Bubble's measure of how much server work your app does, such as reading and saving data and running workflows. Busier apps use more of them, and plans include a monthly amount.
Where does FORGE fit?
FORGE is for teams that want employees to build tools by describing the work, without learning an editor and without a meter on every attempt. It is $49 a seat a month for people who build, with 3 builds included, app users are free, and a build FORGE fails is free.
See what FORGE builds for your team
We onboard every team ourselves, starting with the work that costs you the most time.
Talk to usSources
- Bubble pricing
- Bubble manual: pricing plans
- Bubble forum: workload pricing FAQ thread (April 2023)
- FlutterFlow plan comparison
- Lovable pricing
- Lovable subscription plans
- Bolt.new pricing
- Replit pricing
- Replit Pro plan docs
- Base44 pricing
- Matt Palmer: statement on CVE-2025-48757
- Fortune: Replit agent wiped a database (July 2025)
- Wiz: critical vulnerability in Base44
- Escape: vibe-coded apps study
