{"slug": "lovable", "name": "Lovable", "category": "ai", "category_name": "AI models and assistants", "description": "Browser-based AI app builder that generates full-stack web apps from chat prompts.", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 15, "warners": 2, "score": 5.374, "rising": 3.35, "first": "2026-01-08", "latest": "2026-08-13", "why": "Liked for quickly producing working apps, MVPs and frontends, including by people with no coding background.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 5, "compare": 2, "warn": 2}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 4, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Fast to working app", "Non-coder friendly"], "caveat": "Competition from agents", "short_quote": "I love using Lovable. It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly.", "icon": true, "domain": "lovable.app", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://lovable.dev", "pricing": "freemium", "aliases": ["Lovable"], "verdict": [{"text": "Liked for quickly producing working apps, MVPs and frontends", "cites": [{"id": 788532288, "item_id": 49283268, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49283268", "by": "UtahJazz777", "date": "2026-08-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love using Lovable. It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly.", "excerpt": "I love using Lovable. It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly. Don't need to spend hours deploying it, giving it a database, payments, analytics, etc. It just works much faster and simpler.", "context": "", "use_case": "building full apps with deploy, database, payments", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 788471856, "item_id": 49279491, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49279491", "by": "willnz", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lovable is the fastest way to get a log-in system and database, so a great option for a true MVP.", "excerpt": "Yes, I used Claude Code a lot, but Lovable is the fastest way to get a log-in system and database, so a great option for a true MVP.", "context": "", "use_case": "MVP with login and database", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 744813505, "item_id": 46550844, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550844", "by": "todaycompanies", "date": "2026-01-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used Lovable to spin up the frontend quickly", "excerpt": "Hey HN, I built WorkZoneSpeedingTicket.com to solve a specific problem: automated work zone speed cameras are popping up everywhere (NY, CA, PA, etc.), and the fines (~$50-$100) are in that awkward \"too cheap to hire a lawyer, but too expensive to just roll over and pay\" range. The Problem: States are rolling out automated enforcement in construction zones. Often, the signage is non-compliant, or the \"work zone\" is i", "context": "", "use_case": "frontend scaffolding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Workzonespeedingticket.com \u2013 Automating disputes for automated fines"}, {"id": 749921985, "item_id": 46870124, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870124", "by": "sutaniese", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "(sorry for using lovable. I used it to spin up a waitlist quickly for validation while I focus on the tech)", "excerpt": "Hey everyone, We\u2019ve all been there. You have a cool idea for a model or a RAG pipeline, but before you can do anything interesting, you\u2019re stuck in \"Data Hell\" for three hours. You\u2019re jumping between tabs to find a dataset, manually checking for missing values, realizing the schema is a mess, and praying there\u2019s no PII (emails/phones) hidden in the CSV. It\u2019s tedious, repetitive, and frankly, it\u2019s the reason many proj", "context": "", "use_case": "building a waitlist page", "switched_from": "", "story": "An autonomous MCP Data Engine that handles the dirty work"}]}, {"text": ", including by people with no coding background.", "cites": [{"id": 786662290, "item_id": 49166393, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166393", "by": "bartread", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "managed to build a working application with Lovable on their first attempt within about an hour or two", "excerpt": "Interesting, but... wrong tool, wrong job. And by tool, I mean web based chat interface, not LLMs in general. (Maybe wrong delivery mechanism, if you like.) You need an agent, not a chatbot. I use Claude within VS Code (as per many others) but I certainly wouldn't recommend that for a beginner. You want a tool that's specifically aimed at people who want to build software but don't know the first thing about how to d", "context": "", "use_case": "non-technical app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "LLMs reward expertise"}, {"id": 756223841, "item_id": 47263990, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263990", "by": "toolizr", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Built the whole thing with Lovable \u2014 no coding background.", "excerpt": "I built Toolizr because I was tired of paying separately for every AI tool I use daily. ChatGPT Pro, Claude Pro, Canva Pro, Gemini Pro + Veo 3.1 \u2014 each one priced like it's your only subscription. Combined it was costing me $80+/month. Toolizr bundles them all into three tiers: \u2014 Starter: $20/month (ChatGPT, Claude, Canva) \u2014 Pro: $28/month (+ Lovable) \u2014 Ultimate: $45/month (everything) Built the whole thing with Lova", "context": "no coding background", "use_case": "building the product without coding", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 773536081, "item_id": 48346005, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48346005", "by": "morislz", "date": "2026-05-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Claude, Lovable, and similar tools enable people without specific technical skills to build software.", "excerpt": "Everyone who doesn't have money for paid ads struggles with marketing in the beginning. When I used to build and sell websites a few years ago, I spent about 70% of my time on acquisition and cold calling. Building something useful is easier than ever nowadays. Claude, Lovable, and similar tools enable people without specific technical skills to build software. Marketing has always been the bottleneck. Even posting o", "context": "", "use_case": "building software without technical skills", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why Technical Founders Struggle with Marketing"}, {"id": 774788866, "item_id": 48424304, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48424304", "by": "plagasul", "date": "2026-06-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "So he used lovable, then switched to web gemini and claude, then paid claude.", "excerpt": "Several. Yesterday a friend with no prior coding experience or knowledge showed me an app he initially built to help him study for public administration job positions. The exams for this positions are public (spain), but the tools are scarce, expensive or he did not like. So he used lovable, then switched to web gemini and claude, then paid claude. He now has +130 very active users on an initial free tier, while he f", "context": "friend with no coding experience", "use_case": "building an exam study app", "switched_from": "", "story": "What was your \"Oh Shit\" moment with GenAI?"}]}, {"text": " The most common caveat is doubt about its edge over Claude Code and similar coding agents", "cites": [{"id": 788424994, "item_id": 49276562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49276562", "by": "jmathai", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I'm not sure what advantage Lovable has in the long run.", "excerpt": "I use Claude Code the way others use Lovable. I'm comfortable with the terminal and Claude Code but I think Anthropic (et al.) is closing the gap rapidly. And Claude Code + Claude Design is way more capable than what I think Lovable is. I assume Lovable had to build around constraints to reach non-technical people at the time. But the models and tooling have improved such that those constraints are melting away. I'm ", "context": "", "use_case": "app building for non-technical users", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 748125268, "item_id": 46757829, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757829", "by": "yieldcrv", "date": "2026-01-25", "stance": "compare", "quote": "This gives me results far beyond what v0, lovable or Claude Code would come up with on its own.", "excerpt": ".gitignore > # Claude Code > .claude/ Congratulations! I love seeing people express themselves to release things that were previously not economically viable to prioritize Forget worrying about a 10x dev, Claude Code with the Opus 4.5 model has turned me into a 100x developer even in software stacks I'm not even familiar with. And with playwright-mcp its completely absolved the need for UX designers in my workflow be", "context": "", "use_case": "UI generation", "switched_from": "", "story": "A macOS app that blurs your screen when you slouch"}, {"id": 788510832, "item_id": 49281927, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49281927", "by": "Frannky", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used it in the past and it was terrible.", "excerpt": "When I don't understand why things happen, I assume the problem is my mental model. In this case, I can't build a model where pouring $400M into Lovable makes sense. Who are the users? What are the problems? And why would people pay for Lovable instead of Claude/OpenAI/Grok, etc.? Do they have something those companies don't,something that lets them get chosen vs the competition? I'm very confused. I'm not saying the", "context": "", "use_case": "app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}]}, {"text": ", with one commenter calling it terrible and another warning that high-automation tools like it are too optimistic.", "cites": [{"id": 788510832, "item_id": 49281927, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49281927", "by": "Frannky", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used it in the past and it was terrible.", "excerpt": "When I don't understand why things happen, I assume the problem is my mental model. In this case, I can't build a model where pouring $400M into Lovable makes sense. Who are the users? What are the problems? And why would people pay for Lovable instead of Claude/OpenAI/Grok, etc.? Do they have something those companies don't,something that lets them get chosen vs the competition? I'm very confused. I'm not saying the", "context": "", "use_case": "app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 774925009, "item_id": 48432813, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48432813", "by": "mohsen1", "date": "2026-06-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Most of the solutions that offer a very high level of automation like Lovable are a bit too optimistic", "excerpt": "I've been doing the same experiment in tsz[1] for a while now (the same past five months in fact) and I have come to very similar conclusions. Lots of harness to enforce good architecture splits. Lots of tests and CI. My point of working on tsz is to learn how to do very big projects with AI. Eventually the same workflows and attitude can be leveraged to build customer product apps with UI as well. I see that OpenAI ", "context": "", "use_case": "automated app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "Harness engineering: Leveraging Codex in an agent-first world"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Fast to working app", "summary": "Commenters say it gets a working application, MVP or frontend up quickly.", "quotes": [{"id": 788532288, "item_id": 49283268, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49283268", "by": "UtahJazz777", "date": "2026-08-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love using Lovable. It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly.", "excerpt": "I love using Lovable. It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly. Don't need to spend hours deploying it, giving it a database, payments, analytics, etc. It just works much faster and simpler.", "context": "", "use_case": "building full apps with deploy, database, payments", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 786662290, "item_id": 49166393, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166393", "by": "bartread", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "managed to build a working application with Lovable on their first attempt within about an hour or two", "excerpt": "Interesting, but... wrong tool, wrong job. And by tool, I mean web based chat interface, not LLMs in general. (Maybe wrong delivery mechanism, if you like.) You need an agent, not a chatbot. I use Claude within VS Code (as per many others) but I certainly wouldn't recommend that for a beginner. You want a tool that's specifically aimed at people who want to build software but don't know the first thing about how to d", "context": "", "use_case": "non-technical app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "LLMs reward expertise"}, {"id": 744813505, "item_id": 46550844, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550844", "by": "todaycompanies", "date": "2026-01-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used Lovable to spin up the frontend quickly", "excerpt": "Hey HN, I built WorkZoneSpeedingTicket.com to solve a specific problem: automated work zone speed cameras are popping up everywhere (NY, CA, PA, etc.), and the fines (~$50-$100) are in that awkward \"too cheap to hire a lawyer, but too expensive to just roll over and pay\" range. The Problem: States are rolling out automated enforcement in construction zones. Often, the signage is non-compliant, or the \"work zone\" is i", "context": "", "use_case": "frontend scaffolding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Workzonespeedingticket.com \u2013 Automating disputes for automated fines"}]}, {"label": "Non-coder friendly", "summary": "People without coding experience report building and shipping apps with it.", "quotes": [{"id": 756223841, "item_id": 47263990, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263990", "by": "toolizr", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Built the whole thing with Lovable \u2014 no coding background.", "excerpt": "I built Toolizr because I was tired of paying separately for every AI tool I use daily. ChatGPT Pro, Claude Pro, Canva Pro, Gemini Pro + Veo 3.1 \u2014 each one priced like it's your only subscription. Combined it was costing me $80+/month. Toolizr bundles them all into three tiers: \u2014 Starter: $20/month (ChatGPT, Claude, Canva) \u2014 Pro: $28/month (+ Lovable) \u2014 Ultimate: $45/month (everything) Built the whole thing with Lova", "context": "no coding background", "use_case": "building the product without coding", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 786662290, "item_id": 49166393, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166393", "by": "bartread", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "managed to build a working application with Lovable on their first attempt within about an hour or two", "excerpt": "Interesting, but... wrong tool, wrong job. And by tool, I mean web based chat interface, not LLMs in general. (Maybe wrong delivery mechanism, if you like.) You need an agent, not a chatbot. I use Claude within VS Code (as per many others) but I certainly wouldn't recommend that for a beginner. You want a tool that's specifically aimed at people who want to build software but don't know the first thing about how to d", "context": "", "use_case": "non-technical app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "LLMs reward expertise"}, {"id": 773536081, "item_id": 48346005, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48346005", "by": "morislz", "date": "2026-05-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Claude, Lovable, and similar tools enable people without specific technical skills to build software.", "excerpt": "Everyone who doesn't have money for paid ads struggles with marketing in the beginning. When I used to build and sell websites a few years ago, I spent about 70% of my time on acquisition and cold calling. Building something useful is easier than ever nowadays. Claude, Lovable, and similar tools enable people without specific technical skills to build software. Marketing has always been the bottleneck. Even posting o", "context": "", "use_case": "building software without technical skills", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why Technical Founders Struggle with Marketing"}]}, {"label": "Built-in backend", "summary": "Login, database, payments and analytics come without hours of deployment work.", "quotes": [{"id": 788532288, "item_id": 49283268, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49283268", "by": "UtahJazz777", "date": "2026-08-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love using Lovable. It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly.", "excerpt": "I love using Lovable. It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly. Don't need to spend hours deploying it, giving it a database, payments, analytics, etc. It just works much faster and simpler.", "context": "", "use_case": "building full apps with deploy, database, payments", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 788471856, "item_id": 49279491, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49279491", "by": "willnz", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lovable is the fastest way to get a log-in system and database, so a great option for a true MVP.", "excerpt": "Yes, I used Claude Code a lot, but Lovable is the fastest way to get a log-in system and database, so a great option for a true MVP.", "context": "", "use_case": "MVP with login and database", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}]}, {"label": "Quick validation pages", "summary": "Used to spin up waitlists and demo pages for validating ideas.", "quotes": [{"id": 749921985, "item_id": 46870124, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870124", "by": "sutaniese", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "(sorry for using lovable. I used it to spin up a waitlist quickly for validation while I focus on the tech)", "excerpt": "Hey everyone, We\u2019ve all been there. You have a cool idea for a model or a RAG pipeline, but before you can do anything interesting, you\u2019re stuck in \"Data Hell\" for three hours. You\u2019re jumping between tabs to find a dataset, manually checking for missing values, realizing the schema is a mess, and praying there\u2019s no PII (emails/phones) hidden in the CSV. It\u2019s tedious, repetitive, and frankly, it\u2019s the reason many proj", "context": "", "use_case": "building a waitlist page", "switched_from": "", "story": "An autonomous MCP Data Engine that handles the dirty work"}, {"id": 754732800, "item_id": 47170800, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47170800", "by": "LeoJB", "date": "2026-02-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "how hard could it be to mock up a convincing interactive chart using lovable I wondered?", "excerpt": "Whenever I find myself on Twitter there\u2019s always a handful of new people hitting insane MRR figures in their first month of launching an app. A short confident line like \u201cBRB Printing Money\u201d or \u201cJust hit 300K MRR les\u2019go! \u201d backed up by a convincing chart. Either a screenshot or short recording. Example: https://x.com/leojbarnett/status/2027033450205577577?s=20 The tweets bring the clicks, the likes, the shares, the c", "context": "", "use_case": "building a mock chart app", "switched_from": "", "story": "I made a Fake MRR Maker in 5 minutes"}]}, {"label": "Unusual projects", "summary": "One commenter is vibe coding a point-and-click adventure game with it.", "quotes": [{"id": 788407968, "item_id": 49275498, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49275498", "by": "doener", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Yes, I use it actually for something very unsual (I guess): Vibe coding a classic Point & Click adventure.", "excerpt": "Yes, I use it actually for something very unsual (I guess): Vibe coding a classic Point & Click adventure. Only in German so far and very early in development: https://schmerz-radio.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "vibe coding a point-and-click game", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Competition from agents", "summary": "Commenters question its long-term advantage as Claude Code and similar tools close the gap.", "quotes": [{"id": 788424994, "item_id": 49276562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49276562", "by": "jmathai", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I'm not sure what advantage Lovable has in the long run.", "excerpt": "I use Claude Code the way others use Lovable. I'm comfortable with the terminal and Claude Code but I think Anthropic (et al.) is closing the gap rapidly. And Claude Code + Claude Design is way more capable than what I think Lovable is. I assume Lovable had to build around constraints to reach non-technical people at the time. But the models and tooling have improved such that those constraints are melting away. I'm ", "context": "", "use_case": "app building for non-technical users", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 788510832, "item_id": 49281927, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49281927", "by": "Frannky", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used it in the past and it was terrible.", "excerpt": "When I don't understand why things happen, I assume the problem is my mental model. In this case, I can't build a model where pouring $400M into Lovable makes sense. Who are the users? What are the problems? And why would people pay for Lovable instead of Claude/OpenAI/Grok, etc.? Do they have something those companies don't,something that lets them get chosen vs the competition? I'm very confused. I'm not saying the", "context": "", "use_case": "app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 748125268, "item_id": 46757829, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757829", "by": "yieldcrv", "date": "2026-01-25", "stance": "compare", "quote": "This gives me results far beyond what v0, lovable or Claude Code would come up with on its own.", "excerpt": ".gitignore > # Claude Code > .claude/ Congratulations! I love seeing people express themselves to release things that were previously not economically viable to prioritize Forget worrying about a 10x dev, Claude Code with the Opus 4.5 model has turned me into a 100x developer even in software stacks I'm not even familiar with. And with playwright-mcp its completely absolved the need for UX designers in my workflow be", "context": "", "use_case": "UI generation", "switched_from": "", "story": "A macOS app that blurs your screen when you slouch"}]}, {"label": "Output quality", "summary": "One past user called it terrible, and another says high-automation tools like it are too optimistic.", "quotes": [{"id": 788510832, "item_id": 49281927, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49281927", "by": "Frannky", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used it in the past and it was terrible.", "excerpt": "When I don't understand why things happen, I assume the problem is my mental model. In this case, I can't build a model where pouring $400M into Lovable makes sense. Who are the users? What are the problems? And why would people pay for Lovable instead of Claude/OpenAI/Grok, etc.? Do they have something those companies don't,something that lets them get chosen vs the competition? I'm very confused. I'm not saying the", "context": "", "use_case": "app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 774925009, "item_id": 48432813, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48432813", "by": "mohsen1", "date": "2026-06-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Most of the solutions that offer a very high level of automation like Lovable are a bit too optimistic", "excerpt": "I've been doing the same experiment in tsz[1] for a while now (the same past five months in fact) and I have come to very similar conclusions. Lots of harness to enforce good architecture splits. Lots of tests and CI. My point of working on tsz is to learn how to do very big projects with AI. Eventually the same workflows and attitude can be leveraged to build customer product apps with UI as well. I see that OpenAI ", "context": "", "use_case": "automated app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "Harness engineering: Leveraging Codex in an agent-first world"}]}, {"label": "Outgrown quickly", "summary": "A non-coder started on Lovable but switched to Gemini and paid Claude as the app grew.", "quotes": [{"id": 774788866, "item_id": 48424304, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48424304", "by": "plagasul", "date": "2026-06-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "So he used lovable, then switched to web gemini and claude, then paid claude.", "excerpt": "Several. Yesterday a friend with no prior coding experience or knowledge showed me an app he initially built to help him study for public administration job positions. The exams for this positions are public (spain), but the tools are scarce, expensive or he did not like. So he used lovable, then switched to web gemini and claude, then paid claude. He now has +130 very active users on an initial free tier, while he f", "context": "friend with no coding experience", "use_case": "building an exam study app", "switched_from": "", "story": "What was your \"Oh Shit\" moment with GenAI?"}]}], "who": [{"by": "plagasul", "context": "friend with no coding experience", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48424304", "date": "2026-06-06"}, {"by": "toolizr", "context": "no coding background", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263990", "date": "2026-03-05"}], "tags": ["for non-coders", "for MVPs", "for waitlists and landing pages", "for quick frontends"], "use_cases": ["building full apps with deploy, database, payments", "app building", "mvp with login and database", "app building for non-technical users", "vibe coding a point-and-click game", "non-technical app building"], "compared": [{"slug": "claude-code", "name": "Claude Code", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "claude", "name": "Claude", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "replit", "name": "Replit", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude-design", "name": "Claude Design", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "bolt", "name": "Bolt", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "v0", "name": "v0", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "codex", "name": "Codex", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 788474608, "item_id": 49279663, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49279663", "by": "neongreen", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I think most solo devs would be better served by using Lovable than Codex or Claude, for the kind of apps Lovable is optimized for", "excerpt": "I was on the agent team at Lovable (no longer working there). I think most solo devs would be better served by using Lovable than Codex or Claude, for the kind of apps Lovable is optimized for (i.e. CRUDs with thirdparty SaaS integrations).. and if you ignore the cost, b/c Codex sub is hard to beat. Lovable is a normal, fully capable agent harness. With a Linux box. With all the usual features like MCPs, skills, suba", "context": "Former agent team member at Lovable", "use_case": "CRUD apps with SaaS integrations", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49274858", "title": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025", "mentions": 6}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49161518", "title": "LLMs reward expertise", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49051369", "title": "Fly.io CEO Kurt Mackey is stepping down", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48416264", "title": "Harness engineering: Leveraging Codex in an agent-first world", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48406174", "title": "What was your \"Oh Shit\" moment with GenAI?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48345756", "title": "Why Technical Founders Struggle with Marketing", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1, "compare": 1}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 4, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 788532288, "item_id": 49283268, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49283268", "by": "UtahJazz777", "date": "2026-08-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love using Lovable. It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly.", "excerpt": "I love using Lovable. It's so much better than Codex/ClaudeCode and producing a fully working application quickly. Don't need to spend hours deploying it, giving it a database, payments, analytics, etc. It just works much faster and simpler.", "context": "", "use_case": "building full apps with deploy, database, payments", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 788510832, "item_id": 49281927, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49281927", "by": "Frannky", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used it in the past and it was terrible.", "excerpt": "When I don't understand why things happen, I assume the problem is my mental model. In this case, I can't build a model where pouring $400M into Lovable makes sense. Who are the users? What are the problems? And why would people pay for Lovable instead of Claude/OpenAI/Grok, etc.? Do they have something those companies don't,something that lets them get chosen vs the competition? I'm very confused. I'm not saying the", "context": "", "use_case": "app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 788471856, "item_id": 49279491, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49279491", "by": "willnz", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lovable is the fastest way to get a log-in system and database, so a great option for a true MVP.", "excerpt": "Yes, I used Claude Code a lot, but Lovable is the fastest way to get a log-in system and database, so a great option for a true MVP.", "context": "", "use_case": "MVP with login and database", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 788424994, "item_id": 49276562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49276562", "by": "jmathai", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I'm not sure what advantage Lovable has in the long run.", "excerpt": "I use Claude Code the way others use Lovable. I'm comfortable with the terminal and Claude Code but I think Anthropic (et al.) is closing the gap rapidly. And Claude Code + Claude Design is way more capable than what I think Lovable is. I assume Lovable had to build around constraints to reach non-technical people at the time. But the models and tooling have improved such that those constraints are melting away. I'm ", "context": "", "use_case": "app building for non-technical users", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 788407968, "item_id": 49275498, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49275498", "by": "doener", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Yes, I use it actually for something very unsual (I guess): Vibe coding a classic Point & Click adventure.", "excerpt": "Yes, I use it actually for something very unsual (I guess): Vibe coding a classic Point & Click adventure. Only in German so far and very early in development: https://schmerz-radio.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "vibe coding a point-and-click game", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at $13.3B valuation up from $6.6B in 2025"}, {"id": 786662290, "item_id": 49166393, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166393", "by": "bartread", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "managed to build a working application with Lovable on their first attempt within about an hour or two", "excerpt": "Interesting, but... wrong tool, wrong job. And by tool, I mean web based chat interface, not LLMs in general. (Maybe wrong delivery mechanism, if you like.) You need an agent, not a chatbot. I use Claude within VS Code (as per many others) but I certainly wouldn't recommend that for a beginner. You want a tool that's specifically aimed at people who want to build software but don't know the first thing about how to d", "context": "", "use_case": "non-technical app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "LLMs reward expertise"}, {"id": 784842419, "item_id": 49052651, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49052651", "by": "emerongi", "date": "2026-07-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "will be taken up by Lovable (and the like)", "excerpt": "Sprites seems like a solid lifestyle business for a few friends, not a startup that has taken funding. As a developer, I use docker/podman. Works great. The new massive market that will open up, where grandma and grandpa are making apps, will be taken up by Lovable (and the like). Non-devs will not be using sprites. You\u2019re capturing some small percentage of existing developers. Make sure to return all the funding you", "context": "", "use_case": "non-devs making apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fly.io CEO Kurt Mackey is stepping down"}, {"id": 774925009, "item_id": 48432813, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48432813", "by": "mohsen1", "date": "2026-06-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Most of the solutions that offer a very high level of automation like Lovable are a bit too optimistic", "excerpt": "I've been doing the same experiment in tsz[1] for a while now (the same past five months in fact) and I have come to very similar conclusions. Lots of harness to enforce good architecture splits. Lots of tests and CI. My point of working on tsz is to learn how to do very big projects with AI. Eventually the same workflows and attitude can be leveraged to build customer product apps with UI as well. I see that OpenAI ", "context": "", "use_case": "automated app building", "switched_from": "", "story": "Harness engineering: Leveraging Codex in an agent-first world"}, {"id": 774788866, "item_id": 48424304, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48424304", "by": "plagasul", "date": "2026-06-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "So he used lovable, then switched to web gemini and claude, then paid claude.", "excerpt": "Several. Yesterday a friend with no prior coding experience or knowledge showed me an app he initially built to help him study for public administration job positions. The exams for this positions are public (spain), but the tools are scarce, expensive or he did not like. So he used lovable, then switched to web gemini and claude, then paid claude. He now has +130 very active users on an initial free tier, while he f", "context": "friend with no coding experience", "use_case": "building an exam study app", "switched_from": "", "story": "What was your \"Oh Shit\" moment with GenAI?"}, {"id": 773536081, "item_id": 48346005, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48346005", "by": "morislz", "date": "2026-05-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Claude, Lovable, and similar tools enable people without specific technical skills to build software.", "excerpt": "Everyone who doesn't have money for paid ads struggles with marketing in the beginning. When I used to build and sell websites a few years ago, I spent about 70% of my time on acquisition and cold calling. Building something useful is easier than ever nowadays. Claude, Lovable, and similar tools enable people without specific technical skills to build software. Marketing has always been the bottleneck. Even posting o", "context": "", "use_case": "building software without technical skills", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why Technical Founders Struggle with Marketing"}, {"id": 756223841, "item_id": 47263990, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263990", "by": "toolizr", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Built the whole thing with Lovable \u2014 no coding background.", "excerpt": "I built Toolizr because I was tired of paying separately for every AI tool I use daily. ChatGPT Pro, Claude Pro, Canva Pro, Gemini Pro + Veo 3.1 \u2014 each one priced like it's your only subscription. Combined it was costing me $80+/month. Toolizr bundles them all into three tiers: \u2014 Starter: $20/month (ChatGPT, Claude, Canva) \u2014 Pro: $28/month (+ Lovable) \u2014 Ultimate: $45/month (everything) Built the whole thing with Lova", "context": "no coding background", "use_case": "building the product without coding", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 754732800, "item_id": 47170800, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47170800", "by": "LeoJB", "date": "2026-02-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "how hard could it be to mock up a convincing interactive chart using lovable I wondered?", "excerpt": "Whenever I find myself on Twitter there\u2019s always a handful of new people hitting insane MRR figures in their first month of launching an app. A short confident line like \u201cBRB Printing Money\u201d or \u201cJust hit 300K MRR les\u2019go! \u201d backed up by a convincing chart. Either a screenshot or short recording. Example: https://x.com/leojbarnett/status/2027033450205577577?s=20 The tweets bring the clicks, the likes, the shares, the c", "context": "", "use_case": "building a mock chart app", "switched_from": "", "story": "I made a Fake MRR Maker in 5 minutes"}, {"id": 749921985, "item_id": 46870124, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870124", "by": "sutaniese", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "(sorry for using lovable. I used it to spin up a waitlist quickly for validation while I focus on the tech)", "excerpt": "Hey everyone, We\u2019ve all been there. You have a cool idea for a model or a RAG pipeline, but before you can do anything interesting, you\u2019re stuck in \"Data Hell\" for three hours. You\u2019re jumping between tabs to find a dataset, manually checking for missing values, realizing the schema is a mess, and praying there\u2019s no PII (emails/phones) hidden in the CSV. It\u2019s tedious, repetitive, and frankly, it\u2019s the reason many proj", "context": "", "use_case": "building a waitlist page", "switched_from": "", "story": "An autonomous MCP Data Engine that handles the dirty work"}, {"id": 748125268, "item_id": 46757829, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757829", "by": "yieldcrv", "date": "2026-01-25", "stance": "compare", "quote": "This gives me results far beyond what v0, lovable or Claude Code would come up with on its own.", "excerpt": ".gitignore > # Claude Code > .claude/ Congratulations! I love seeing people express themselves to release things that were previously not economically viable to prioritize Forget worrying about a 10x dev, Claude Code with the Opus 4.5 model has turned me into a 100x developer even in software stacks I'm not even familiar with. And with playwright-mcp its completely absolved the need for UX designers in my workflow be", "context": "", "use_case": "UI generation", "switched_from": "", "story": "A macOS app that blurs your screen when you slouch"}, {"id": 744813505, "item_id": 46550844, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550844", "by": "todaycompanies", "date": "2026-01-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used Lovable to spin up the frontend quickly", "excerpt": "Hey HN, I built WorkZoneSpeedingTicket.com to solve a specific problem: automated work zone speed cameras are popping up everywhere (NY, CA, PA, etc.), and the fines (~$50-$100) are in that awkward \"too cheap to hire a lawyer, but too expensive to just roll over and pay\" range. The Problem: States are rolling out automated enforcement in construction zones. Often, the signage is non-compliant, or the \"work zone\" is i", "context": "", "use_case": "frontend scaffolding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Workzonespeedingticket.com \u2013 Automating disputes for automated fines"}]}