Comparisons
Lovable vs Bolt vs v0 vs Cursor: which AI builder for which job?
Lovable, Bolt, v0, and Cursor are often lumped together as "AI coding tools" but they solve different problems. Picking the wrong one for the job is the #1 source of frustration. This is the honest comparison: what each is best at, where each falls down, and how to choose.
Quick verdict
- Lovable.dev — best for full-stack web apps with a database, auth, and a UI. End-to-end, prompt-driven, ships a real Supabase backend.
- Bolt.new — best for self-contained, single-page demos and quick experiments. Lighter on the backend story.
- v0 by Vercel — best for UI components and design exploration. Brilliant at React + Tailwind component generation; not a full-app builder.
- Cursor — best for editing an existing codebase as a senior developer. AI inside a real editor, not a builder.
Lovable.dev — full-stack web apps
Lovable's strength is full-stack: prompt → React frontend + Supabase backend + Auth + Storage + Edge Functions, all wired up. The preview iterates in seconds. The trade-off is that you're working in Lovable's editor, not your local IDE — though you can export the GitHub repo any time.
Pick Lovable when: the thing you're building has users, persistent data, and needs to ship as a real product.
Bolt.new — quick demos
Bolt runs in WebContainers — a Node.js runtime in the browser. That's magical for demos and small SPAs, less magical when you need a real database with RLS, edge functions, or anything Postgres-specific. Bolt's backend story is younger than Lovable's.
Pick Bolt when: you're building a quick prototype to share, a single-page tool, or a static-ish site.
v0 by Vercel — UI components
v0 is the best on the market at "generate a React + Tailwind + shadcn/ui component from a description". It's not trying to build your whole app — it generates components you paste into an existing project.
Pick v0 when: you have a Lovable, Next.js, or Vite app and need a polished hero, pricing table, dashboard layout, or empty state.
Cursor — AI in a real IDE
Cursor is VS Code with AI baked in. It assumes you have a codebase already and want to edit it as a senior developer would — refactor, add tests, write features against an existing architecture. It's not a builder; it's an editor.
Pick Cursor when: you've outgrown the AI-builder phase and are maintaining a real codebase day to day.
The combo most teams end up with
Lovable for the first 80% (data model, auth, core flows, deployed Supabase backend). v0 for marketing-site components. Cursor for production maintenance once the codebase is mature. LovableForge sits in front of Lovable to make the first 80% production-quality on the first build, rather than the third.