Checked 16 October 2026

What you actually get for free

All six tools say "start for free". Here is what that means on each one, taken from their own pricing pages. I haven't run the builds yet, so this is what they promise, not what I measured.

ToolFree plan
Lovable
  • 5 build credits a day, capped at 30 a month
  • 20 Cloud (hosting) credits a month
  • 4 credits a month for AI features inside your app
  • Private projects and lovable.app addresses
Bolt
  • 300K tokens a day, 1M tokens a month
  • Public and private projects
  • Hosting, up to 333K web requests
  • Unlimited databases
  • 10MB file upload limit
v0
  • 7 messages a day
  • Deploy apps to Vercel
  • Design Mode and GitHub sync
Replit
  • Daily Agent credits, up to a monthly cap
  • Monthly credits for database, storage and publishing
  • Lite build only (not the full Agent)
  • 1 published app, which goes down after 30 days
Cursor
  • Limited agent requests
  • Limited chat requests
Claude Code
  • None. Claude's free plan does not include Claude Code.

The catch on each one

Lovable
30 credits a month. Lovable's own examples put a small edit at 0.5 credits and adding login at 1.2, so that's a small app, not a big one.
Bolt
Bolt says most tokens go to syncing your project files to the AI, so the bigger the project, the faster 1M runs out. Free sites carry Bolt branding.
v0
7 messages a day. One real feature can take several back-and-forth messages.
Replit
No full Agent build, no Stripe or other third-party connectors, and your one free published app expires after 30 days. Replit doesn't publish the exact credit amounts on that page.
Cursor
The pricing page says "limited" and gives no number. Cursor plans are now bundled with Grok and X features, and on Plus only Grok models are available.
Claude Code
You need Pro or higher. The other way in is paying per token with API credits.

Which free plan goes furthest?

On paper, Bolt's 1M tokens a month and Lovable's 30 credits a month are the most room to build a full app without paying. v0's 7 messages a day is fine for UI pieces. Replit's free tier is Lite build only, and Cursor doesn't put a number on "limited". Claude Code has no free plan at all.

Tokens and credits aren't the same unit, so I can't tell you yet which one gets you further. That's what the builds are for. Get the results by email.

Try Bolt free Affiliate link. Disclosure

See also: all paid plans side by side and Lovable vs Bolt.

Sources

Checked 16 October 2026. Vendors change these often. If something's out of date, tell me.