Bolt.new vs Glide

Bolt.new is an AI app builder from StackBlitz, the San Francisco company founded in 2017 whose WebContainers technology runs Node.js entirely inside the browser. Bolt launched in October 2024, grew to an estimated $40 million in annual recurring revenue within months, and in January 2025 StackBlitz raised a $105.5 million Series B led by Emergence Capital and GV. Its core job: you describe an app, website or prototype in chat, and Bolt writes the code, runs it live in the browser and deploys it.

Bolt Cloud adds hosting, unlimited databases, authentication, custom domains and analytics, so small apps can ship without leaving the product. You can start from Figma, a GitHub repo or a template, connect Stripe for payments, and build mobile apps through Expo. Pricing is token-based: the free plan gives 1 million tokens a month with a 300,000 daily cap, Pro gives 10 million tokens with rollover and removes Bolt branding, Teams adds admin controls and shared capacity, and Enterprise is billed by consumption.

Bolt fits founders, designers and developers who want a working prototype or MVP in hours with real, exportable code. It is weaker on large, long-lived codebases: token usage grows with project size, and debugging loops can burn through allowances. Lovable and Replit target the same audience, Bubble and FlutterFlow are visual builders with their own runtime, and Softr fits simple internal tools.

Buying tip: start on the free plan to judge how fast your project consumes tokens; heavy users should take Pro annual, where unused tokens roll over.

Glide is a San Francisco-based no-code platform, backed by Y Combinator, that turns spreadsheets and databases into business apps. Operations teams take data from Google Sheets, Airtable, Excel, SQL databases or Glide's own Glide Tables and, in hours, build mobile-friendly apps for inventory, field service, check-ins, internal CRMs and dashboards.

Apps are assembled from components (lists, forms, charts, maps, buttons) and run in the browser on phones, tablets and desktops without app store publishing. Workflows automate actions on schedules, webhooks or user events, AI columns and actions classify text, extract data and generate content, and user roles plus row-level permissions control who sees what. Plans range from a free tier for personal projects to Basic, Plus and Pro plans priced by credits, team members and published apps, with enterprise options for SSO and governance.

Glide fits operations managers and small teams who know spreadsheets and need a working internal app quickly, especially for staff in the field. Design customization is limited compared with code-based tools, pricing tied to credits, members and published apps can grow with adoption, and it is not the right choice for public consumer apps at scale or complex custom logic. Softr is a close alternative focused on portals over Airtable, AppSheet suits Google Workspace organizations, and Bubble or FlutterFlow fit teams building full custom products.