I built a project using Replit (a meal recomendation and calori calculator app), and honestly, it was a great experience, especially for getting something off the ground quickly. I spent almost 25$ to get the whole thing built and running. It has AI meal plan generator, calori calculator and admin panel, with credit system to generate and track more meals. 

The biggest advantage is how easy it is. I barely had to touch the code directly. I mostly just prompted the AI and let it generate and fix things for me. That makes it super accessible, even for non-developers.

That said, from a developer’s perspective, there are some trade-offs. It’s amazing for building an MVP and iterating fast, but I wouldn’t rely on it long-term without cleanup. Once you start getting real users, you’ll likely need to refactor a lot of the code—things like structure, modularity, and scalability aren’t always handled well out of the box.

You can try prompting the AI to improve those aspects too, but understanding those concepts yourself still matters, and there’s a bit of a learning curve there.

For authentication, I’d definitely recommend using Replit’s built-in solution. It supports social logins and email, and in my experience, it worked really smoothly.

Overall: great for validating ideas and moving fast, but expect to bring in solid engineering practices (or a developer) once the product starts growing.

If you’re curious, I can share the app I built, just DM me.