Bolt.new

What it is

Bolt.new (from StackBlitz) builds and runs full-stack web apps in the browser — it writes the code, installs dependencies, runs the dev server, and shows you a live app, all without anything installed locally. You can edit the code directly if you want, or just keep prompting. It sits between v0 (frontend only) and Lovable (guided, non-technical) — more capable and more transparent than Lovable, but expecting a bit more comfort with seeing code.

Our verdict

A strong choice when you want a genuinely working full-stack demo and don’t mind glancing at the code. Because the whole environment runs live in-browser, what you test is what actually runs — no “it worked in the mockup” gap. The free tier is one of the more usable in this category with a real 1M-token monthly allowance.

Where it falls short: it’s priced in tokens, and tokens scale with your codebase size, not just your prompts — so as the project grows, every edit costs more, and a big app can drain tokens alarmingly fast. It also assumes more technical fluency than Lovable; a non-technical PM can get stuck when a build errors and the fix lives in the code.

Get value in 10 minutes

1. Open bolt.new (no signup needed to start a first project).
2. Prompt the whole app at once: “Build a simple event-RSVP app: a public page listing upcoming events, an RSVP button that collects name and email, and an organizer page showing who RSVP’d per event. Use in-memory data for now.”
3. Wait for it to install and boot — the live preview appears in the same window.
4. Test the RSVP flow, then ask for one refinement (“Add a headcount total per event”).
5. Use the built-in deploy/share option to send a live link to a colleague.