Lovable is a buzzy artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform founded in 2023. It offers a vibe coding tool that generates code based on text prompts and provides autocomplete suggestions, as well as detects errors as developers work on a codebase.
Essentially, Lovable is an AI coding assistant that helps developers write code, reducing the time they would have to spend manually writing all the code from scratch. It’s a practical companion for creating simple code, allowing developers to focus more on the complex parts of their codebase.
Since its 2023 launch, Lovable has amassed over 2 million users —a remarkable figure achieved in just two years. It has raised over $200 million in funding to enhance its products and establish a practical business model, giving users sufficient confidence in Lovable’s long-term viability.
Yet, Lovable is not the only prominent vibe coding platform. In an AI industry that moves exceedingly fast, many competitors have emerged to grab a slice of the booming Vibe coding market.
Read on to learn about these alternatives and choose the best coding companion that’ll boost your productivity.
Cursor AI
Cursor AI was launched in late 2023 and soon amassed a large user base. It hit 1 million users in 2025, seemingly without even trying. Word of mouth, rather than intensive marketing campaigns, brought in most of its users. This organic growth suggests that Cursor AI is a highly capable AI tool, prompting users to recommend it to their social circles.
Features
Chat interface
You can interact with Cursor AI via its chat interface, similar to using ChatGPT or any other large language model (LLM). On this chat interface, you can ask Cursor AI to generate code with specific instructions, e.g., “Create a Python script to read data from a CSV file and calculate the average of each column.”
You can also provide a piece of code and ask Cursor AI to analyze it, e.g., “Explain the purpose of this algorithm” and “Why am I getting an error from this code?” Likewise, you can ask Cursor AI to modify existing code and give you a detailed explanation of the modification.
Cursor AI isn’t perfect. It’s a work in progress, so don’t expect it to give you 100% reliable code. However, it excels at simple coding tasks, and the more precise your request, the better its answer.
Autocomplete
Along with the chat interface, you can also use Cursor AI’s autocomplete functionality when writing code. That is, instead of asking one-off questions, Cursor AI will be a companion as you write your code, suggesting the next lines to add and correcting mistakes.
Cursor AI learns from your coding patterns to provide suggestions as you work on a codebase. If you’ve ever used a writing assistant, such as Grammarly, it works similarly, but for writing code rather than natural text.
While not perfect, Cursor AI is a major productivity boost for developers, as it corrects mundane errors and provides suggestions that you would otherwise spend more time manually implementing.
Pricing
Cursor AI is a freemium tool, like most vibe coding platforms. It has a free plan, but you need a paid plan to access the most advanced features. There are three standard paid plans: Pro, Pro Plus, and Ultra.
The Pro plan costs $20 per month, making it best suited for freelancers or indie developers with lighter workloads. It enables unlimited autocompletions when coding and allows a sizable number of requests on Cursor AI’s chat interface.
The Pro Plus plan costs $60 monthly. It provides 3.5 times the usage allowance of the Pro plan, i.e., you can make 3.5 times more requests to Cursor’s AI agent on the chat interface. This plan is best suited for professional coders with heavy workloads.
The Ultra plan costs a pricey $200 per month. At this price range, it's designed for top-tier users running multiple agents and relying significantly on AI in their workflow. At 20 times the usage limit of the Pro plan, it’s overkill for an average coder, but suitable if you plan to run technically complex tasks on many codebases.
There’s also a Team plan designed for businesses, costing $40 per user per month. This plan offers collaborative features that aren’t available in the other plans.
Replit
Replit was founded back in 2016 as a collaborative integrated development environment (IDE) tool. It amassed a sizable user base and was reasonably successful, but took off in 2023 amid the AI boom.
Around this year, it pivoted from a collaborative IDE into an AI-based vibe coding platform. Replit offers the best of both worlds: a sophisticated, collaborative IDE and AI-based agents to assist developers in creating software.
Features
AI agent
Similar to Cursor AI, Replit has a chat interface where you can ask its underlying AI agent to generate code based on specific instructions. For example, you can ask it to “Generate a code to add a search bar to my web app” or “write a Python script to find a missing number in an array?”
You can also ask Replit general coding-related questions, such as “suggest a way to connect my web app to an external database” or “What are ideal options for integrating a payment gateway into my app?”
When Replit generates code based on your instructions, you don’t have to settle for the first answer. You can ask it to improve the code based on new instructions. Likewise, you can modify an existing codebase that Replit didn’t generate.
Code editor
Replit doesn’t just have integrations with existing code editors or IDEs. It provides its own code editor that runs entirely within a web browser. You can use this editor to write code, and Replit’s AI agent will serve as an assistant that corrects errors and suggests the next lines of code to write.
Given its history as a collaborative IDE tool, Replit has retained its extensive collaborative features even as it pivoted towards vibe coding. With Replit’s code editor, multiple people can work on the same codebase seamlessly, with everyone’s changes visible in real-time. Collaborators can leave comments and exchange ideas right on the code editor.
I like that Replit runs entirely on a web browser, unlike many code editors that require downloading a desktop app. However, there’s still a desktop app if you prefer this option to running it on a web browser.
Bounties
Replit has an interesting feature called Bounties. Essentially, when developers need help with specific tasks, they can place “Bounties,” which are cash rewards for whoever completes the task.
If you’re a skilled developer, you can complete Bounties and earn money. Bounties range from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars per task, depending on the complexity.
Pricing
Replit has a free plan that unlocks access to basic features. This plan is suitable for one-off or infrequent tasks, but you’ll run into limits if you plan to use Replit regularly.
For regular use, you need to subscribe to the Core or Teams plan and unlock full access to Replit’s AI agent.
The Core plan costs $20 per month. With its full access to Replit Agent, you won't have to worry about making excessive requests. Along with Replit’s AI agent, it also unlocks access to the Claude Sonnet 4 agent, built by Anthropic, and the GPT-4o agent, built by OpenAI. These are external large language models (LLMs), but paid Replit users can use them to help solve coding problems.
The Teams plan is designed for companies that want to give their developers access to Replit’s toolkit, including AI-based coding assistance and the collaborative IDE. It costs $35 per user per month, which is more expensive than the Core plan but justifiable due to the additional features.
For instance, the Teams plan features role-based access control, enabling users to determine who can access their codebase and make edits or submit suggestions.
On this plan, multiple developers can collaborate on the same codebase, with each being assisted by Replit’s agent. It’s a valuable toolkit that helps boost developer productivity.
Windsurf
Windsurf has a fascinating history. It was founded in 2021 as Exafunction, a platform focused on optimizing graphical processing units (GPUs) for better performance. For reference, GPUs are powerful chips used to train the AI models that now power Vibe coding apps.
In 2022, Exafunction pivoted to building an AI-powered coding assistance platform, then changed its name to Codeium. It found moderate success until the 2023 AI boom catapulted the platform into stardom. Codeium rebranded to Windsurf in 2024 and is currently one of the top-five vibe coding apps by user count.
Features
Code editor
Windsurf offers a code editor, or IDE, that is integrated with Cascade, the company’s proprietary AI agent. Cascade serves as your AI assistant when using this code editor, providing autocomplete suggestions, detecting and alerting you about errors, and providing suggestions to make your code more efficient.
The Windsurf Editor isn’t just designed for individual use. Teams can use it to collaborate on the same codebase, with the Cascade AI agent helping each collaborator write the most efficient code. You can download the Windsurf Editor on a Mac, Linux, or Windows PC.
You don’t necessarily have to use Windsurf’s Editor to have its Cascade agent serve as your coding assistant. Windsurf integrates with other popular code editors, including Visual Studio Code and JetBrains.
For example, if you already use Visual Studio Code as your primary code editor, you can integrate it with Windsurf and start your vibe coding journey. Cascade will provide autocomplete suggestions and help resolve errors as you write code on other IDEs.
Chat interface
You can interact with Windsurf’s Cascade AI agent in chat mode. In this mode, the AI agent can’t make direct changes to your codebase. However, you can ask it to generate new code, modify existing code, or answer general technical questions.
For example, you can upload a code file and ask Cascade to find any bugs in it. You can ask it for a code to add a specific feature to your application. The use cases are endless, just like they are on Windsurf.
Whether you use the code editor or chat interface, Windsurf is a valuable companion for coders. It saves considerable time and effort you would otherwise spend thinking about mundane problems, and you can channel this saved effort to more complex coding challenges.
Pricing
Windsurf is freemium, like the other tools I’ve mentioned. The standard business model of vibe coding platforms is to offer a free plan that introduces users to basic features, and then users who like the platform can select a paid plan to unlock advanced functionalities.
Individuals can choose the Windsurf Pro plan, and companies can select the Teams or Enterprise plan.
The Pro plan costs $15 per month. It provides 500 monthly prompt credits, which averages 2,000 prompts, but can be lower based on the complexity of your requests.
The Teams plan costs $30 per user per month. Under this plan, each developer has 500 prompt credits, the same as on the Pro plan. However, there are many other extra features, such as AI-powered code reviews, a centralized admin dashboard, and zero data retention for privacy purposes.
The Enterprise plan costs $60 per user per month. Each developer account under this plan receives 1,000 monthly prompt credits, which is double the amount provided in the Teams plan. Extras include role-based access control and single sign-on (SSO) integration for security purposes.
Notably, exhausting your monthly prompt credits doesn’t mean you’ll have to wait till the next month for a renewal. You can buy extra credits at a rate of $10 per 250 credits or $40 per 1,000 credits.
Final words
The vibe coding industry is nowhere near its peak. It’s still relatively new, and with the considerable AI improvements seen recently, we can expect even more accuracy and features as time goes on.
Lovable is one of many vibe coding platforms, and I’ve described three other alternatives you can choose from.
These platforms improve your productivity as a coder, whether for personal or professional use. Adopt one today and raise your software creativity to a higher level.
