Bolt vs. Base44: Which Vibe Coding Platform is Better?

Software is very different now than it was a few months ago. For a long time, if you wanted to make apps, you had to either hire developers or spend months learning how to write computer programming. What do we do now? You just tell the artificial intelligence what you want, and it makes it for you. That’s vibe coding, and Bolt vs. Base44 are the two platforms that are fighting for the top spot in the rankings.

They both say they can make your ideas into software that works without you having to write any code. But they’re doing it in very different ways, and picking the wrong one could cost you time, money, or both. Let’s talk about what’s most important when you have to choose between Bolt vs. Base44.

Bolt vs. Base44: How Their Vibe Coding Is Different

Before we start comparing, it’s helpful to know what vibe coding is. You don’t just move boxes around with this no-code tool.

You type what you want in plain English, and the whole app appears to be a miracle. You can then change and tweak it by talking to the AI again.

The explosion happened so quickly that investors put more than $35 billion into this sector in just the last year. There are now millions of customers for companies that didn’t exist two years ago. It’s not just new businesses, even massive enterprises like the Fortune 500 are getting in on the action.

Bolt: The Powerful Browser

Bolt started in the latter part of 2024 and quickly became very popular. However, the company only made less than a million dollars a year after seven years in business. They then switched to vibe coding, and that change is what saved them.

With WebContainers, the platform can run entirely in your browser. WebContainers technology lets you install apps, run backends, and change real code all in your browser. You don’t have to download anything or set anything up on your computer; just open a tab and start building.

What Bolt Does Right

The best part? Bolt v2 is the first to bring the best tools and business-level infrastructure for vibe coding right to your browser. This means you can use the latest AI models without having to use developer tools or a terminal.

The infrastructure is solid. Bolt Cloud works directly with Stripe, databases, authentication, payments, SEO, and more. It takes care of all of these things automatically. As soon as you make something in Bolt, it’s ready to use. You can either deploy to a Bolt.host domain right away or connect your own.

Integrating with GitHub works great, and it only took a few minutes to link a project to GitHub, and any changes made in Bolt were automatically sent to GitHub. This is pretty important because it prevents your coding from getting stuck in Bolt’s ecosystem. You can build there and then keep working on it at home if you want.

The free package is very generous because it gives you AI tokens daily, while a paid tier gives you 10 million AI tokens every month, which is enough for light to moderate development needs.

Where Bolts Vibe Coding Has Problems

The layout could possibly be too much for people who aren’t good with technology. There is a terminal, a file explorer, and a preview pane that can be scary for people who only design or make things. If you’ve never worked with code before, you’ll still have to learn how to use it.

The cost of tokens adds up quickly for projects that are hard. When you work on complicated apps, tokens disappear quickly. This makes sense because you’re using the latest AI, however it tends to be expensive if you’re making something big.

Web apps work best on this platform, there is mobile development, but it doesn’t seem like a priority. When I asked Bolt to make an app that worked on mobile devices, it thought I meant to make a mobile app and made an Expo project, which is an indicator that mobile isn’t the main focus, but it is very adaptable.

Base44: The Tale of a Sudden Vibe Coding Triumph

Base44’s story sounds like something that was made up. Israeli programmer Maor Shlomo worked on it as a side project for six months. By June 2024, he had sold it to Wix for $80 million in cash. The platform spread mostly through word of mouth.

As a separate company, Base44 is said to have grown to 250,000 users in six months, with 10,000 people signing up in the first three weeks. Big Israeli tech players became aware of that growth, and Shlomo’s open posts about costs and decisions quickly built trust.

What Base44 Does Well

It’s as easy as it gets to set up. You log in, present your concept, and in a few minutes, you’ll see the app come together.

Base44’s method gives you a fully automated, chat-based interface that takes care of all the technical stuff behind the scenes. This illustrates that you don’t need to set anything up by hand or use third-party tools. Base44 is different from other companies because it comes with “batteries included.”

The platform worked well for businesses. Base44 made deals with big Israeli tech companies like eToro and Similarweb to work together. These weren’t just toy demos; they were real enterprise apps that handled sensitive data.

People were impressed with how well it worked for the price. Amazon asked Base44 to show off at an AWS event in Tel Aviv after he wrote about why he chose to use Anthropic’s Claude through AWS instead of OpenAI’s models, mostly because it was cheaper. AI startups usually don’t make money right away, but this one did.

What Base44 Doesn’t Do Well

What happened next is the most important thing. Wix bought Base44, an AI-powered platform that lets anyone use English to create apps and software solutions that work. Wix owns it now, but it’s not clear what will happen next.

There were safety concerns. Wiz Research found a major flaw in Base44 that let people who shouldn’t have access to private apps made by its users. The vulnerability was fixed quickly after it was responsibly reported, but it shows how risky it is to use new systems to hold business data.

There is uncertainty because of the fast growth and acquisition. Base44 will not be merged with Wix; it will stay its own product. But there are still questions about the long-term plan. Will Wix spend a lot of money on it or just leave it alone?

Bolt vs. Base44: A direct comparison of speed and ease of use

Base44 is faster and easier to use. Because it has a conversational interface, anyone can use it, no matter how much technical knowledge they have. You say something about an app, and it appears. Bolt has to pick up more practical experience and study the inner workings of things.

Developer Control

If you want to be in charge, Bolt is probably the better option. The code was well-written, and the component architecture was good enough that any developer could add to it. You can see everything that is made, change it right there, and export it to work on it somewhere else.

Setup and Infrastructure

They approach infrastructure in different ways, but both are effective. Bolt handles databases, hosting, payments, SEO, and more on its own. Base44 has some of the same features, but it’s not as clear what happens behind the scenes.

Set to Do Business

Base44 has worked with a lot of big companies before, but the security hole is a problem. With the $105 million from StackBlitz, Bolt is now financially secure and well-positioned to launch its business.

Cost and Worth

Bolt’s pricing system is pretty straightforward and has free daily tokens and paid levels. After Wix bought Base44, the prices changed. There is currently a free plan available on Base44, but you will need to sign up for a separate membership.

Bolt vs. Base44: Who to Choose?

Choose Bolt if you:

• Want to see all the code that was written Want to switch to traditional development at some point
• Need a strong link to GitHub
• Are okay with a little bit of technical difficulty
• Want to work with the latest artificial intelligence models

Choose Base44 if you

• Need something that works right away without any setup.
• Don’t want to learn how to code and don’t have any experience.
• Trust that Wix’s ecosystem will grow and change in the future.
• Want the simplest interface possible
• Are making apps or prototypes easier

Bolt vs. Base44 The Third Choice: Noca AI

Bolt and Base44 mostly make apps for the web and mobile devices, but Noca does things differently. The main goal of the platform is to use natural language prompts to make and deploy AI agents, chatbots, and business apps, and then connect them all in the same way.

With Vibe Coding, you can make anything from custom CRMs and approval workflows to dashboards, internal tools, and portals for customers. Just tell them what you need. Noca is much better at automating tasks across systems than tools that only work on the front end.

The platform works with the systems that are already in place at the business. Noca works with your apps, databases, and APIs right away, so you can build new workflows on top of what you already have. This is important for businesses that already have tech stacks and can’t start over.

Building AI Agents

The platform is great for building intelligent systems. Noca knows what your business needs and can quickly give you the right answer, whether it’s an app, an automation, or an AI agent. These are not just basic chatbots. They are agents that can work on a lot of different systems.

Noca is a good choice if you want to do more than just make apps that work on their own. If you want to:

• Talk to customers with AI agents
• Make workflows happen automatically in a lot of business systems.
• You can connect your own CRMs, ERPs, or marketing platforms.
• Make tools for your own use that pull data from other databases.
• Build chatbots that can do things instead of just answering questions.

Most of the time, businesses that use Noca AI see results from Vibe Coding in just a few weeks. This means they can get their money back right away. It focuses on business outcomes instead of just writing code, which is what makes it different.

The Big Picture

The trend of vibe coding isn’t going away. The term “vibe coding” was coined by Andrej Karpathy, a well-known AI scientist and co-founder of OpenAI. It refers to the process of writing code with the help of an AI assistant. It started out as an experiment, but now it’s a real business plan.

In the future, it’s not developers vs. vibe coders; it’s developers who can do both. The best teams will use vibe coding to quickly make and change prototypes, and then they will use traditional development to make them bigger and better.

For individuals and small groups, these tools change everything. You can now prototype ideas that would have taken months and thousands of dollars for the price of a subscription. The cost of making software has just gone down.

Choosing What to Do

Ultimately, the decision between Bolt and Base44 comes down to what you’re making and who you are.

Bolt gives you more power, control, and freedom, but it also makes things harder to understand. Base44 is simple to use and quick, but Wix owns it, so you can’t be sure of the long-term future.

Both will help you make apps that work faster than they used to. Both will save you time and money compared to hiring developers to make prototypes. These are both examples of how software will be made in the future.

Try out the free versions of each and make the same simple app on both. This will help you figure out which one feels more natural to you. The best tool isn’t the one that has the most features on a comparison chart; it’s the one you’ll actually use.

Noca has features that Bolt vs. Base44 don’t have if you need more than just building standalone apps, like AI agents, automating workflows, and integrating with other businesses.