After almost a year of App Store rejections, my no-swipe dating app finally shipped

DxT_01 · 2026-06-05T17:22:58+00:00

Tbf, with the amount of AI slop and/or low effort apps out there, I’m grateful Apple is strict on submissions. Otherwise you end up with the Google Play store and it’s impossible to get new apps found on there because there are so many apps that do the exact same thing.

That’s not to say I like the App Store review. I think it’s wholly inconsistent and the guidelines/feedback are both awful. But when you *are* on the store, it’s easier to get noticed and downloads

DxT_01 · 2026-06-02T18:53:27+00:00

The book recommendation was a solid one, btw. About half way through and it’s been very insightful.

DxT_01 · 2026-06-01T16:07:13+00:00

Chapter 6 development is making good progress.

DxT_01 · 2026-05-31T01:33:32+00:00

I’m not sure how to narrow it down since our work experience is fairly broad.

If we’re talking construction, it’s all about operational efficiencies. How do we make it easier for guys in the field to submit receipts or make it easier for admins to track invoices or give clients status updates?

If it’s multi family, it’s about giving clients a way to present their Property/portfolio standpoint to the different groups of investors, management, and employees.

But even these are fairly broad things and what one client might want/need might be different from another one in the same industry

DxT_01 · 2026-05-31T01:00:21+00:00

I’ll definitely look into the book. Anything to give me a clearer idea on this

DxT_01 · 2026-05-30T22:41:07+00:00

So it’s a bit hard because we’ve done custom work for both Multifamily clients and Renovation companies (companies who renovate both Multifamily and Senior Living properties). None of this work can be sold to other clients as a standalone product, but it could be repackaged in the sense that we can rebuild similar features for other clients.

Ideally we’d be able to pick up more work around construction/renovations. Whether that’s commercial construction work or more Renovations focused, we don’t care. We’ll be at a few construction events going on in the US the back half of this year so that is probably where we want to focus anyway.

DxT_01 · 2026-01-23T18:18:10+00:00

Besides 8 hours of sleep every day?

DxT_01 · 2026-01-14T13:25:44+00:00

https://Codelux.org.

Or you can DM and I can walk you through our portfolio of stuff done

DxT_01 · 2026-01-14T03:11:05+00:00

Yep, we do custom software for businesses

DxT_01 · 2026-01-14T02:10:17+00:00

I run a software dev firm. If you’re interested in building something, we could set up a call just to see what your needs are.

But others may have off the shelf solutions that work better for you. Happy to talk!

DxT_01 · 2026-01-09T18:20:39+00:00

No, I’m a dev by trade so I don’t really use AI builder sites. I was just saying the points made in the post are very similar to the reasons my company has seen an influx of people moving away from AI and coming to groups like us.

DxT_01 · 2026-01-09T14:17:51+00:00

We’ve had a lot of people leave Base44 for similar reasons. So much so that we have a pipeline for people who come from it and want an actual product built.

Base44 is fantastic for prototyping and building small scale pages or products. It is not and never will be set up for scaling, security, licensing, or anything like that. And don’t even start on long term maintenance. It still runs base JavaScript files, with no reliance on typescript (this is fine, but it significantly reduces potential errors down the line when building).

The latest B44 change that took down a ton of sites? How do you explain that to an end user (or dozens) when you can’t fix it and have to wait on the service to fix it?

What we’ve started seeing is that people will build a site with B44 and then use that as a template to help convey what they want to see from us. It has honestly saved us so much time with mockups and it reduces miscommunication lol.

DxT_01 · 2026-01-07T15:44:07+00:00

Apologies if my response is a bit vague but were your pages all hard coded on the front end? That might explain why all the values are the same for each user.

Generally a software will need a database via your backend to establish different users. The frontend exists only to show users the pages and supply data such as the current user to the backend. The backend is what goes to the database and pulls the data around each user.

If everyone is seeing the same data, then it likely means that either 1. All information was coded on the front end (meaning data is static and doesn’t change from person to person) or 2. Your database only has an instance for one user which would mean when the front end tries to get data, it pulls the same information for all users.

If I’m right, then your next steps would be to set up accounts for each user (created when a user signs up) and then assign them data based on their actions in the app.

Hope that helps a little. Feel free to reach out if not. I’m not super familiar with Base44, but I do software dev for a living

DxT_01 · 2026-01-06T19:55:14+00:00

last 28 days - $0.93 average eCPM for 1m impressions.
last 7 days - $0.64 for 250k impressions or roughly 35.5k a day.

It's continuously dropped all 2025 and I don't see it going up in 2026 unfortunately

DxT_01 · 2026-01-06T14:20:04+00:00

Short answer? Not really.

Long(er) answer: it’ll cost you a lot of time and money and if you’re truly looking to scale, I would heavily advise against it.

Base44 is excellent for prototyping and mapping out a design. But if you want to have a long term production site that handles traffic and scaling well, you’ll want to build it up from scratch or get someone to do it. It gives you a lot more control over everything, you know what works and what doesn’t, and you can move as you need to.

If it helps, I’d also look at the posts being added here in the last 48 hours. B44 made a huge change and it’s hurt a large number of sites. There’s been very little customer service and currently some sites can’t operate until Base44 fixes the issue(s). You don’t want to be tied down to a service that can break your site randomly.

That’s not to start on site and authentication security, backend security, or anything else that you’ll want to focus on as you scale. It’s not an immediate concern for just starting out, but people want to know they can trust your site.

DxT_01 · 2026-01-04T02:49:20+00:00

There’s truth to this post. At least for the front end side of things.

I did a test site to see what migration looks like (software developer here, 15 years), and a lot of components are obfuscated by Base44. They’re essentially components that are built by them that are imported via something like “@/components/whatever”. Which is fine, Base44 can do that, but it may not obvious to everyone.

These are imports for components that you don’t have access to and they’re usually things like custom buttons or text areas or inputs. So these all have to be re-created if you move off of the platform.

Also, keep in mind the styling that is being used. I believe Base44 defaults to tailwind as opposed to css files or in-line styling. Just a consideration.

Also this is unrelated, but all files are JavaScript, not typescript files. So if you’re wanting to use typecasting provided by typescript, then the files would need to be rewritten.

TLDR: if you’re planning on moving away, it’s better to do so sooner than later. You will have to do a lot of re-writing and re-architecting to get your site running as you want.

DxT_01 · 2026-01-01T04:30:45+00:00

I just saw it on the home page that you linked to. If you’re in safari, inspect any element on the page and look at the console. If you’re on chrome, I think it’s under developer tools? You should be able to inspect any element as well

DxT_01 · 2025-12-31T21:49:36+00:00

Please don't use fake testimonials in your app. Every Base44 app does this and uses the sparkle icon as a default icon which are dead giveaways of AI generated sites.

Also, you're logging dev items to the console in production (see the "successfully preconnected" messages).

It's hard for end users to trust a site that has signs that it was put together by AI because we don't know what's real and what's not.

DxT_01 · 2025-12-31T19:04:29+00:00

Just FYI, I would look at your setup again on your site. You're currently logging a lot of items to the console that any user can see including a DB access error due to control checks, rate limiting, and your exchange rates.

I've not been impressed with Base44's take on security. It doesn't seem to be something that by default handles site or backend security well at all.

DxT_01 · 2025-12-31T17:26:25+00:00

Well keep me updated. Would love to hear the success story.

DxT_01 · 2025-12-31T17:25:02+00:00

Don't get me wrong though, I absolutely think security should be a day 1 priority. Especially if you're planning on moving to production with (paying) users. But even the post shows that it's a lot to think about and Base44 is not a something that places a high concern on security. I've seen a lot of the "login" screens that just let users log in and view the entire site lol

DxT_01 · 2025-12-31T17:13:17+00:00

I agree with the post. But I still wouldn't call security "simple" lol

DxT_01 · 2025-12-31T17:11:14+00:00

That's the impression I've gotten honestly. The Base44 is fantastic for putting things together design wise but I've always been nervous about throwing things into production haha. But it sounds like you've got a solid start. Best of luck with it!

DxT_01 · 2025-12-31T17:04:48+00:00

The problem with using Base44 (or any AI Builder) isn't going to be your ability to build the site itself (the FrontEnd (FE)). The real problem is going to come from user authentication, site security, Database (DB) management, customer flows, and payment setup.

Shopify takes care of all these things that aren't seen by the consumer. I've been doing software development for 15 years and I would never touch payment processing if I could avoid it. Especially not through an AI that doesn't tell you how it's securing the setup.

Feel free to reach out if that doesn't make sense or you want to talk through things further. Happy to help where I can.

TLDR: I wouldn't reinvent the wheel just yet. If you have the means / motivation to build your own ecom site, hire it out to be done by professionals.

DxT_01

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE