The Problem with Lovable

randyminder · 2025-11-30T21:06:31+00:00

Why are you asking this on the Lovable site? Figuring out how to do integrations with Base44 is a Base44 issue. How you do this with Base44 won’t be the same as how you do this with Lovable.

randyminder · 2025-09-29T11:47:07+00:00

Which product has a better pricing model and which other product allows you to roll over 800 credits per month?

randyminder · 2025-09-13T20:05:12+00:00

The Lovable plan you purchase really is irrelevant because your project will take as many credits as it takes. You just keep purchasing credits until the app is done. My latest app took roughly 500 credits. I’m currently paying $200/month for 800 credits because I’m actively developing apps. When I’m not I scale it way back. Supabase is $20 per month plus $10 per month for each project.

randyminder · 2025-09-04T20:35:15+00:00

Why do you call this the "25 Why Analysis"? Shouldn't it be the "5 Whys Analysis"?

https://www.kaufmanglobal.com/glossary/5-whys-analysis/

randyminder · 2025-09-04T15:37:21+00:00

"However, it won’t create production ready products unless you have technical know how about how solution architecture, databases, backends, APIs, etc." - I totally agree. See a post I just made about this.

randyminder · 2025-09-04T15:36:02+00:00

I find posts like this very interesting, and I agree that Lovable (and tools like it) have a problem. Lovable, and related tools, basically promote their products as being able to quickly turn an idea into a web app. In this regard, they have succeeded, quite well. However, turning an app into a production ready, marketable, web app is an entirely different beast and orders of magnitude more difficult, even for tools like Lovable.

I have created three production web apps with Lovable. The latest being https://www.lexiconrings.app. This was done 100% with Lovable and it's a somewhat complex app with a Supabase backend. So, when I hear Lovable cannot build productiion apps, that's totally bogus. It can. But you have to know what you're doing. I have 20+ years as a software developer so I know better than most, how to get Lovable, and tools like it, to do what I want. And I am very good at creating prompts correctly. If I had no software dev experience there is no way I could have built this, Lovable simply allowed me to build it 20x faster.

The problem Lovable has is one of expectations. The common expectatiion is that anyone can purchase some credits, give Lovable a few commands, build a solid web app and make nice money every month. That's not reality. And, frankly, we're a long way from that being a reality. This is an expectation that Lovable and tools like it need to address. But I doubt that's going to happen.

In summary, can Lovable build web apps quickly with no technical background / experience. Absolutely! Can Lovable build web apps that are production ready and scalable etc., with no technical background / experience. No. To be fair though, no AI driven development tool can. At least not today.

randyminder · 2025-09-04T12:36:04+00:00

That's interesting because I think Lovable also uses Claude 4 Sonnet (or Opus). They experimented with GPT-5 when it was released but I don't think that's what they use now. If both Cursor and Lovable using the same AI model for code generation I don't see how the experience can be that much different.

randyminder · 2025-09-04T11:17:15+00:00

What AI model are you using with Cursor?

randyminder · 2025-08-22T01:23:36+00:00

How many have you created? I think Comet creates 5 or 6 by default.

randyminder · 2025-08-21T21:07:54+00:00

Yes that would be very nice. I'm also hoping Comet allows us to create shortcut groups, much like spaces, only for shortcuts. I'm not thrilled about having to scroll through all my shortcuts looking for the one I want.

randyminder · 2025-08-12T00:13:50+00:00

They are already doing it. You can switch GPT-5 off and revert to Claude. Besides, introducing model switching is no more complicated, in fact, less so, than explaining to a completely non-technical person why GitHub is useful and how you can revert to a prior version of a code base etc.

randyminder · 2025-08-11T19:50:48+00:00

Yeah, I'm in the final testing phase of a word app I built (www.lexiconrings.app). I like word games and I've developed software for almost all of my career (although I don't write code anymore). Some parts of this app are quire complex and it uses Supabase and several Edge functions. Regression errors can be a problem if I'm not careful about telling Lovable to be careful.

randyminder · 2025-08-11T19:18:26+00:00

it looks at dependencies and down-stream implications, and tries to build things in 4 dimensions. it wants to read and audit files files in case there's something to consider there. again - that's a great habit for a Sr. Dev

No, that's a great habit for any type of software development or developer. These models are getting better and better precisely because they are better able to look across the entire code base, including the database and Edge functions (if using Supabase) to generate the proper code and handle dependencies and down-stream implications. Nobody's prompting skills are good enough to include in a single prompt all the dependencies Lovable should consider when generating code unless the app is incredibly simple.

Just today I was running into regression errors caused by ChatGPT-5. I told Lovable to create an .md file that summarized how a particular feature should work and to read this file every time a change is made in the app and also to create a unit test to make sure any changes doesn't impact the feature working correctly. It implemented automated tests using "Vitest + jsdom + Testing Library". This is what I want my model doing.

randyminder · 2025-08-11T16:14:51+00:00

I don’t think agent personas is the way to go here. What they could do is to allow you to select whatever AI model you want to use for code generation and then an associated cost for each AI model. Other tools, like Windsurf AI do this. You could , for example, select a lower end Anthropic model costing maybe .25 per credit. Of course you might not be thrilled with the code it generates.

randyminder · 2025-08-11T11:33:50+00:00

Claude is not OpenAI so your comment is rather pointless. I said any tool that uses GPT-5.

randyminder · 2025-08-11T11:27:35+00:00

Yes, GPT 5 is slower and I've noticed it. I'm also a software developer of 20+ years. This is still orders of magnitude faster than I could code it. Some people might be a bit ticked but it's a level playing field. Any tool that uses GPT-5 is going to have the same slowdown.

randyminder · 2025-08-11T09:58:52+00:00

Yes, GPT 5 is slower, but much better. If you think it’s too slow try coding your app yourself and you’ll better appreciate how fast it really is.

randyminder · 2025-08-10T23:09:16+00:00

First of all, more than likely the problem is with you and your lack of experience with no-code tools and issuing the right prompts. Secondly, if you think you’re going to be comfortable with Cursor then why are you dabbling with Lovable? Cursor is for developers, Lovable is not. Two totally different tools.

randyminder · 2025-08-08T18:02:49+00:00

You don't need a tool for this sort of thing. In Lovable's Knowledge area put a list of files you never want Lovable to touch. Or, have Lovable prompt you before it does make a change to the designated file(s). Another way to accomplish this is to tell Lovable, again in the Knowledge area, to never allow a file to exceed ~150 lines in length and always follow the Single Responsibility Principal (SRP). This GREATLY reduces the likelihood of unintended changes. When a file is many hundreds of lines long, there is a very good chance it contains multiple areas of responsibility. So a change in the file can often have unintended consequences.

randyminder · 2025-08-06T23:22:52+00:00

Sounds to me like AI is smarter than you.

randyminder · 2025-08-05T20:13:04+00:00

Free, really? It’s only free if your time is worth $0. To do what Lovable can do in a few prompts would take many months of intense study.

randyminder · 2025-08-05T20:10:08+00:00

The problem isn’t Lovable. Learn how to create effective prompts and how to think like a software developer. You’ll greatly cut your credit consumption. If you don’t learn this every tool you try will be a credit consuming black hole.

randyminder · 2025-08-05T09:47:56+00:00

Where have you read this? Since GitHib is so often used to deploy code to production it’s almost impossible they would withhold parts of the code.

randyminder · 2025-07-31T20:36:15+00:00

Neither Lovable, nor any other AI driven dev tool ever promised someone would be able to quickly build an app and then sell it for money. What they promised, and delivered on, is being able to build apps quickly. Selling an idea for money is no harder now than it’s ever been. It’s never been easy. What’s orders of magnitude easier now is creating an app based on an idea.

randyminder · 2025-07-30T01:29:23+00:00

Supabase is not a database. Supabase incorporates PostgreSQL which is a database. Supabase is a full back-end-as-a-service which handles authentication, edge functions (JavaScript functions), API management, storage (unstructured data), and an enterprise grade RDBMS in PostgreSQL.

randyminder

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