Base44: A Brutally Simple Alternative to Lovable
Full-stack apps in minutes with zero technical skills. All-in-one: Google authentication, database and permissions without leaving the app.
Hey, welcome to the free edition of The Product Compass newsletter.
Every week, I share actionable tips, resources, and insights for PMs.
Here’s what you might have recently missed:
I Copied the Multi-Agent Research System by Anthropic. No Coding!
AI Agent Architectures: The Ultimate Guide With n8n Examples
Consider subscribing and upgrading your account, if you haven’t already, for the full experience:
Since Jan 2025, I’ve been promoting Lovable as the best no-code solution for building real, full-stack apps. In that time, the company has grown about 10 times from $6M to $60M ARR, becoming Europe’s fastest-growing AI startup.
But I’ve also emphasized one thing:
While working with Lovable doesn’t require coding, it does require basic technical knowledge.
As explained in best practices, a Lovable user should:
Review components Lovable creates,
Look at the database structure,
Understand Supabase RLS (row-level security) policies,
Know how to integrate Lovable with GitHub, Supabase, or Netlify.
Turned out, it was a problem for some readers.
Recently, someone in our community recommended Base44. I was skeptical. But I decided to test it.
Base44 turned out to be the simplest all-in-one solution for those who want to build prototypes, small full-stack apps, or even minimal products.
So, in today’s issue:
Demo: Building a RAG Chatbot With Base44
Base44 vs. Lovable: Feature Comparison
Conclusion
This post was not sponsored. The only sponsors that appeared here on Substack in 2025:
AI PM Certification by (Product Lead at OpenAI). I recently joined Miqdaq as AI Labs Build Leader.
AI Evals for Engineers and PMs by (ML Engineer, 25 years of experience) and Shreya Shankar.
Those courses are currently the #1 and #2 ranked on Maven.
1. Demo: Building a RAG Chatbot With Base44
In 18 minutes, I built a RAG chatbot and recorded the entire process.
You can access it here for the next 30 days: https://app--aura-chat-024996e0.base44.app
A full recording with everything I did step-by-step:
A few additional thoughts about what just happened:
The best part?
Except visiting the OpenAI Platform (specific to my scenario), I didn’t have to leave the app:
User interface: Base44
Backend: Base44 (integrated)
Database: Base44 (integrated)
Authentication: Google (by Base44, enabled by default)
Permissions: Base44 (integrated)
Vector store: OpenAI Assistant
No connection strings, separate databases, additional scripts, or extra tools to use. Everything works out of the box.
2. Base44 vs. Lovable: Feature Comparison
So what’s the difference? And can we just switch to Base44?
Below I compared the most important features:
Just a few selected points from the table:
Database
When working with Lovable, you need to rely on an AI coding agent making changes in Supabase:
In Base44 everything is, by default, stored in a fully integrated database. No need to leave the tool to see or edit the data:
Permissions
When working with Lovable, you need to rely on RLS policies modified by the AI agent. This doesn’t always work reliably, I recommend reviewing Supabase RLS policies regularly:
In Base44, you can easily configure permissions in the user interface. No need to leave the tool:
Authentication
When working with Lovable, you need to manually configure authentication providers other than email, such as Google:
On top of that, due to the email limits, you often need to configure custom SMTP, such as Resend.
One great option is using Clerk, which radically simplifies managing users. But it doesn’t solve the problem with email limitations.
In Base44, Google authentication is enabled and works by default. And all basic integrations are included in the “integration credits,” without extra costs.
Version control and application lifecycle management
Unfortunately, Base44 doesn’t allow you to sync your codebase with GitHub and doesn’t support branching or merging changes. This means that you shouldn’t use it to test and modify products with real users in production.
Lovable allows you to achieve that with GitHub and Supabase branches:
3. Conclusion
I wanted to demonstrate Base44 because even though Lovable doesn’t require coding, some readers struggle with its technical aspects.
If you want a radically simple way to build a prototype, MVP, or AI product for your portfolio without worrying about tech - Base44 could be the answer.
And having too many users or versions? You don’t need that for an MVP. And that’s a good problem to have. It means you succeeded.
At the same time, in my opinion, Lovable:
Generates slightly higher-quality UX and UI
Doesn’t involve the risk of vendor lock-in
Allows you to easily edit texts and labels without prompting
Allows you to invite others to collaborate on the project
Contains critical features for managing code and database versions
Allows you to develop and test your changes before deploying them in production
When combined with Clerk, it allows you not only to easily authenticate, but also to monetize your product (yes, I’ll be simplifying my Stripe PoC - it’s a new feature)
[Bonus] The same prompt. Base44 vs. Lovable:
For now, I’ll keep using Lovable for my personal projects.
The guys are iterating fast. Hope they catch up soon.
P.S. No more excuses for not developing LLM-powered products for your AI PM portfolio or for learning by doing. You can start and finish today! 😀 See some inspirations in the archive.
Thanks for Reading The Product Compass Newsletter
Hope that helps!
It’s great to explore, learn, and grow together.
Have a fantastic weekend and a great week ahead.
Paweł
Hay Pawel, I'm one of your premium subscriber :D
This is Very useful post. Good to know about BASE44. Will give it a try !
Pawel, What do you think about future of software consulting companies? Like Infosys, WIPRO.
How the employees should empower them to stay relevant with these Ai ?
Hi Pawel! I highly recommend giving Replit a try. It also comes with its own built-in database, makes it super easy to connect to other services using API keys, and in my opinion, the UI it generates looks great. The AI agent is also a pleasure to work with — it asks for confirmation and presents options before making changes. I especially like the “next steps” suggestions, where it recommends ways to improve your app.
That said, after spending some time with Lovable, I’d say Replit is on a different level. They also put a strong emphasis on security, which is great to see. In my experience, it’s also much more stable — it rarely gets stuck and easily figures out how to fix bugs on its own.