Bolt

The choice comes down to three profiles: see which one fits you.

Who it is for. Bolt is made for people with an idea but no code: an entrepreneur with a service concept, a marketer with a landing page, a designer with a mockup. Describe it — get a working prototype with a database and payments, show it to people, test demand. The free plan is enough to try it out: a million tokens per month.

Who it is not for. If your project already lives in its own code — Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex are the right genre: they work in your repository, while Bolt builds in its sandbox. It honestly gives you the code — GitHub sync and full export — but the project still lives in its home.

Launching a business on generated code? Then someone who can read code is essential between "built" and "shipped": apps in this genre have common security holes — exposed keys, an unsecured database. What exactly to check is in section 6.

Just getting started? Have not built projects yet — start with the page “What is vibecoding”, Bolt will come in due time.

It fits — start with section 3. If you are choosing between it and Lovable, see the split in 7.

Plans before building. Since August 2026, Bolt has had Plan Mode: discuss the concept and build plan without spending tokens on generation — then tell it to build.

Builds from words. Write what you need: "a studio site with class bookings and payments." Bolt generates the code, starts the environment, and immediately shows a live preview — you see the first version in a couple of minutes.

Handles the database and login. Since fall 2025, databases, user registration, and file storage have been built in: you do not need to build a separate backend for a prototype.

Builds from a mockup. Paste a link to a Figma frame — Bolt turns the mockup into a working page with the same grid and styles (a January 2026 feature).

Builds mobile too. From the same project — a React Native app: point your phone camera at the QR code and view it on your screen. Bolt does not create a finished binary for app stores — only a preview.

Publishes it itself. Press Publish — and the site goes live on built-in hosting with an address like name.bolt.host; you can connect your own domain on a paid plan. Before launch — a built-in security check (added in August 2026).

In our project. An honest note: this site is built by Claude Code and Codex coding agents, Bolt is not part of our workflow. This card is based on fresh research: every number was checked against primary sources on August 18.

Browser. Chrome and compatible browsers; Safari joined in summer 2026. Your computer can be weak — everything runs in the tab, no heavy hardware needed.

Mobile. Mobile preview is through the Expo Go app: Bolt shows a QR code, point your camera at it, and see your app on your screen.

Exit route. Your code is not locked in: two-way GitHub sync or archive export means the project can continue in any editor.

Record rise. Launched in October 2024, then $40 million in annual revenue within five months with a team of fewer than twenty people (founder Eric Simons, March 2025). It also reached three million sign-ups. No software company had ever grown faster.

Silence after the rise. Since March 2025, the company has not shared fresh figures, while the genre moved ahead: Lovable reached $500 million in annual revenue by June 2026, and Replit raised a round at a $9 billion valuation. Bolt went from race leader to playing catch-up.

A bold move - Microsoft. In May 2026, Bolt joined Microsoft Marketplace: enterprises buy it through their existing Microsoft agreements, and the agent can be called directly from Teams. The company says 75% of the Fortune 500 use the platform - its own figure, with no methodology.

Plans. Free includes one million tokens per month (no more than 300 thousand per day) and a "Made in Bolt" badge on the published site. Pro is $25 per month for 10 million tokens, with a slider up to $200 for 120 million. Teams costs $30 per seat. Annual billing is cheaper - up to 28%.

Token math. Every generation consumes tokens, and usage grows with project size: a landing page costs tens of thousands of tokens per turn, a large app hundreds of thousands. Unused paid-plan tokens last one more month; top-ups cost $20 for 10 million.

The genre's main complaint. Bolt fixes its own mistakes with your tokens: you ask it to fix a small detail, it rewrites half the file, breaks something nearby, then fixes that too. On large projects, this cycle consumes millions of tokens. There is one remedy: discuss the plan in Plan Mode before building and ask for targeted changes.

From Russia. Sign-up and payment require a foreign IP address - step one in section 3. Payments run through Stripe, Russian cards do not work: you need a foreign card; see how to get one on payment page.

Your code. Everything Bolt builds belongs to you - commercial use is explicitly allowed in its terms. You can take it all: GitHub or an archive.

What about privacy. The company's policy collects prompts and code but does not answer the key question: is it used to train models? An independent transparency index rated its disclosure 36 out of 100 (August 2026) - a rating of document honesty, not a security audit. The platform has no certifications such as SOC 2.

Generated-code holes are the genre's main risk. Researchers scanned thousands of vibe-coding apps: common findings included access keys directly in page code and databases open for anyone to read. For a neighboring tool in the genre, this resulted in a 9.3 out of 10 vulnerability: other people's data could be read from 170 apps. In August 2026, Bolt added a security check before publishing - but it does not replace a person reviewing the code.

Reliance on one model. Only Anthropic models run inside Bolt - the company has no model of its own. This supports build quality, but also creates dependency: another lab sets the prices and limits.

Insurance policy - open source. Bolt has an open-source version, bolt.diy (19.8 thousand GitHub stars): the same mechanics, your own keys, any models. If the platform changes, the mechanics stay with the community.

Twins in concept, different fates. Both build an app from a description in words, and both start at $25. But in 2026 Lovable pulled ahead: $500 million in annual revenue by June and a $13.3 billion valuation after its August round, versus Bolt's last stated $40 million in revenue back in spring 2025.

Where Bolt is stronger. Everything runs in the browser without cloud sandboxes - hence the speed and support for weak hardware. The code is visible and editable throughout the process - for a developer, it is home rather than a black box. And only Bolt has the open bolt.diy version and mobile apps through Expo.

Where Lovable is stronger. The normie's path is smoother: fewer buttons, less code in sight, and a larger community and more templates. For a first prototype without ambitions to dig deeper, Lovable is the more beaten path today.