Moving from Base44 to Lovable, Bolt or Replit

What can travel between AI builders

Every AI app builder has two halves: an editor that writes code from your prompts, and a backend that the generated code depends on. Base44’s backend is its own. Lovable’s default is Lovable Cloud or a Supabase project, Bolt works with its own backend options, and Replit runs whatever servers and databases you set up there.

That split decides what moves:

• The frontend can travel, with work. A Base44 app is a React app built with Vite. Other builders can host React code.
• The data layer can’t travel as is. Every page reads and writes through the Base44 SDK, which talks to Base44’s API. In another builder that code has to be rewritten against that builder’s backend.
• Data moves as files. Base44 exports records as CSV, one table at a time, and references between tables are IDs you’ll need to preserve.
• Users don’t move with their passwords. Base44 doesn’t hand out password hashes; its documentation says app users can’t be exported.
• Functions, automations, workflows, agents and integrations are Base44 services your code calls. Each one has to be rebuilt on the new platform.

So “switching builders” in practice means keeping the look of your app and rebuilding most of what’s behind it.

Builder by builder

What follows is accurate as of September 2026. These products change quickly, so check their current documentation before you commit.

Lovable

Lovable projects sync outward to GitHub: you start a project in Lovable and connect a repository. Lovable’s own GitHub documentation says it can’t import an existing repository; you can only export from Lovable to GitHub. Some people work around that by connecting a fresh Lovable project to a repository and pushing their own code into it, which Lovable doesn’t document. Lovable’s backend is Lovable Cloud or a Supabase project of your own, so a Base44 app moving there is, underneath, a Base44-to-Supabase migration: new data model, new security policies, new sign-in, rewritten functions.

Bolt

Bolt can open a GitHub repository as a new project. Your frontend code arrives intact, and Bolt’s AI can help rewrite it, but the Base44 SDK calls still need a backend Bolt supports, so the data layer, sign-in and functions are rewritten there too.

Replit

Replit imports GitHub repositories directly. Because Replit runs real servers and databases, you have more freedom than in the other two: you could run your own backend next to the frontend. But you would still have to provide something that answers the Base44 SDK’s calls, or rewrite them.

Coding agents on your own repository

Increasingly the “builder” people move to isn’t a builder at all. Claude Code, Cursor and Codex work directly on a repository, anywhere. They don’t host anything, which is the point: the code, hosting and data are yours, and the agent is a tool you can swap.

Base44’s importer runs the other way

It’s telling that Base44 itself has a Migrate from another platform feature that brings projects in from Lovable and Bolt: it reads the Supabase tables (schema and data) and pulls the frontend from GitHub (Migrating a project to Base44). Builders compete for arrivals. None of them has much reason to make departures easy, which is why a clean exit is something you have to plan yourself.

Why “just re-prompt it” is harder than it looks

Many owners’ first instinct is to describe their app to a new builder and let it regenerate everything. For a simple app with no users, that can be the fastest route. For an app with real users it misses most of the value:

• Your data has to be exported, reshaped for the new database and imported, with IDs and relationships intact.
• Your users have to be recreated, and every one of them has to set a new password.
• Your business rules live in security rules, functions and workflows that the new builder can’t see. A prompt describes what the app looks like; it rarely captures who may edit which records, or what happens at 9am every Monday.
• Your integrations (payments, email, connected Google accounts) need reconnecting, and webhooks from services like Stripe need their addresses changed.
• Everything needs testing again, because it’s a new app that resembles the old one.

A decision guide

If you do switch builders: a checklist

• Export every table to CSV, and keep the files.
• Export your users’ emails, names and roles, and write the message explaining the password reset.
• Write down every secret your functions use, and every connector your app relies on.
• List your automations or workflows with their schedules and triggers, in plain words.
• Note every external service that calls your app (Stripe webhooks, form tools, other apps), because their target addresses will change.
• Keep the Base44 app running until the new one is tested and your domain has moved.

Keep the AI workflow without switching builders

The main reason people look at other builders is to keep building by describing changes rather than writing code. You can keep that without starting over. After an Unbase44 migration your app is a documented repository, with a README plus AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md written so coding agents understand it from the first prompt. Point Claude Code or Cursor at it and keep going, and a chat-based AI editor that works on your own repository is coming soon.