A data-driven field report from 165 Reddit threads, 36 subreddits, over 50 X/Twitter posts, and zero platform sponsorships. The Problem: Nobody Knows Which App Builder Is Actually Best Choosing an app builder in 2026 should be straightforward. There are more platforms than ever, more reviews than ever, more comparison articles than ever. And yet the question “which app builder should I use?” produces worse answers today than it did five years ago. ...
The “vibe coding” era is here. Whether you love the term or hate it, there’s no denying that AI-powered coding tools have fundamentally changed how software gets built. In our State of App Building — February 2026 report, we found that over 60% of indie founders and solo developers now use at least one AI coding tool in their workflow. Three names dominate the conversation: Lovable, Bolt (bolt.new by StackBlitz), and Cursor. Reddit threads comparing them rack up hundreds of comments. Twitter/X is full of hot takes. And if you’re trying to decide which one to invest your time and money in, the noise can be overwhelming. ...
The most-engaged thread in our State of App Building research tells the story: “The problem with vibe coding is nobody wants to talk about maintenance” — 562 upvotes, 252 comments on r/vibecoding. After a year of breathless excitement about AI-generated apps, the builder community is reckoning with a hard truth: prompt-based building is a powerful starting point, not a complete solution. The Pattern The Reddit data maps a textbook hype cycle: ...