The "build apps with AI" category has exploded in the last year. At a glance the tools look similar; in practice they aim at different points in a developer's workflow. This article walks through five that I have actually shipped with — Rork, Bolt, v0, Replit Agent, and Cursor — and compares them by use case rather than feature list.
The frame is "for this goal, which one should I pick," not "which has the longer checklist."
The quick map
Before detail:
- Launching a mobile app → Rork
- MVP a web app in one sitting → Bolt
- Generate production-looking UI pieces for an existing project → v0
- Grow a project in the cloud over time → Replit Agent
- Supercharge development in an existing codebase → Cursor
These five tools are less "competitors on the same line" and more "pieces of a map." Using the right one for the right slice of work is the real win.
Rork — AI-first mobile app builder
Rork builds iOS/Android apps through conversation with an AI. Output is React Native, so you get a real native-shell app that runs on devices early.
One-liner: a mobile-only AI builder. It is not the right tool for web apps, but on mobile the starting polish and speed are ahead of the general-purpose options.
Good fits:
- Solo devs prototyping mobile apps
- Mobile MVPs for client demos
- Demo apps for investor pitches
- Mobile-version concepts for existing web products
The most striking thing about Rork in practice is that mobile-native UI patterns — tabs, modals, pull-to-refresh — arrive without fighting. Compared to retrofitting "mobile-ish" looks onto a web-built frontend, the starting point is already at a higher level.
Pricing is plan-based around AI usage. Prototyping stays cheap. Heavy iteration adds up.
Bolt — web apps generated "in one chat"
Bolt (bolt.new) generates full-stack web apps from a single chat prompt. A Vite + React + TypeScript stack appears in your browser in minutes, and you interact with it right there.
The strength is speed to first interactive version. "Build me this kind of app" produces a running app in minutes. Non-trivial features like auth and payments arrive reasonably complete on the first pass.
Good fits:
- Web app MVPs in hours
- SaaS prototypes
- Hackathon-scale projects
- Validation tools
What makes Bolt distinct from no-code is that you see and keep the code. Generated files are inspectable, editable, and exportable to GitHub. You can take what the AI built and keep growing it in a normal dev workflow.
Weaknesses: chat alone becomes awkward as the project grows, and for long-term development most people pair Bolt with a follow-on environment (such as Cursor) for ongoing work.
v0 — a UI artisan you can talk to
v0 (Vercel) focuses on UI component generation rather than whole apps. You ask for a button, a dashboard, a form — and get a polished React component back, rooted in shadcn/ui and Tailwind CSS.
The output is visibly polished. For design-forward work, or for quickly producing several UI variants to pick from, v0 fills a slot no other tool in this list covers as well.
Good fits:
- Adding polished components to an existing project
- Producing dashboard UI first drafts
- Generating design-system-aligned variants in bulk
- Landing page aesthetics
v0 feels less like "build an app" and more like "a designer sits next to you." The overall architecture stays your job; v0 accelerates the local, aesthetic parts.
Replit Agent — a cloud dev environment with AI
Replit Agent builds on Replit's browser IDE + hosting platform. The distinguishing feature is that generated apps can be deployed and kept running in the same environment without leaving the browser.
Compared to Bolt, Replit is a full IDE and host to begin with. Generation is just one step — continuous development, deployment, and ops are all in the same place. It supports a wider range of stacks (Python, Node, Flask, Next.js, Django, ...).
Good fits:
- Small services meant to stay online in the cloud
- Python tools and scripts
- Educational projects
- Polyglot experiments across stacks
Bolt excels at "frontend-forward web app today." Replit excels at "a cloud service that grows across stacks." Generation quality feels slightly rougher than Bolt or v0, and the IDE can be overwhelming for newcomers because it exposes so much at once.
Cursor — turning AI into your co-worker in your own codebase
Cursor is a VS Code fork with deep AI integration. It sits apart from the other four: this is not a tool that builds apps from nothing, it is a tool for writing code with an AI beside you.
If you already have a codebase, Cursor can reshape your productivity. Letting the AI read an entire project and propose changes in the right places is an experience the other tools cannot substitute for.
Good fits:
- Adding features to existing projects
- Refactoring
- Bug fixing
- Code review workflows
- Greenfield work where you want code authorship
Where the other four generate apps from scratch, Cursor grows apps that already exist. It is less a factory and more an amplifier.
Two axes: speed to start vs. ease of long-term maintenance
Plot the five on two axes:
Speed to first interactive version: Bolt ≥ Rork > Replit Agent > v0 > Cursor.
Ease of long-term maintenance: Cursor > Replit Agent > Rork (after code export) ≈ Bolt > v0 (not stand-alone).
Short-term demo velocity tilts toward Bolt and Rork. "Still shipping it a year from now" tilts toward Cursor. Real practice tends to pair the ends: prototype with Bolt or Rork, then graduate the live project to Cursor (optionally with Replit for cloud runtime).
A hybrid workflow I currently run
- Idea stage. Rork for mobile mock, Bolt for web mock — a few hours each.
- Concept validation. Polish a few critical screens with v0. Show to stakeholders.
- Real development. Export Bolt/Rork output to GitHub. Grow with Cursor.
- Operations. Park lightweight backend services on Replit so they stay up without ceremony.
What I like about this setup is that the tools do not fight each other. They specialize. Trying to finish everything in one tool almost always loses to deploying the right tool for each phase.
Four questions that narrow the decision
When someone asks me "which should I use," I tend to ask:
- Mobile, web, or code? Mobile → Rork. Web → Bolt. Code-first → Cursor.
- From scratch or into existing? From scratch → Rork/Bolt. Into existing → Cursor/v0.
- Plan to keep growing it? If yes → Cursor/Replit. If one-off → Rork/Bolt are fine.
- Is final UI polish needed now? If yes → v0. If later → the others.
Four questions and most decisions settle.
All of these tools have a free or low-cost tier. The fastest way to decide is to spend thirty minutes inside each contender on a real goal of your own. The one that feels right in your head tends to be the one you actually ship with.