Appifex vs Bolt.new
From fast prototyping to production-grade apps. What decides it: who walks you through Apple provisioning, and what language the backend speaks. The full comparison is below.
Head-to-head comparison
What the difference looks like on a real app
Take an internal ops dashboard that reads a Postgres table, sends a nightly digest and needs SSO. Bolt.new handles all three well: Bolt Database, Server Functions for the digest, Google SSO out of the box, and the browser preview makes iteration fast. Where the two diverge is what happens when someone asks for a phone app. Bolt has Expo support but no guided path through Apple provisioning, so that becomes your project. Appifex generates the React Native app alongside the web one from the same backend, and walks the App Store Connect key, the build and the TestFlight upload.
What each one costs
Bolt.new
Free tier: 1M tokens a month, with a 300K daily limit.
Paid: Pro is $25/month, Teams $30/month per member.
Pro removes the daily cap and starts at 10M tokens a month. Bolt meters tokens rather than messages, so a long debugging session on a large file can cost more than several small features.
Appifex
Free is 1,000 credits a month, card-free; Pro $20/month for 5,000, which is also where native Swift builds and managed hosting start; Max $200/month for 100,000. Full breakdown.
Bolt.new pricing read from Bolt pricing on , the same day as every other claim on this page. Vendors change prices; check the source before deciding.
The verdict
Choose Appifex if you want the backend and database generated as code you own and host, rather than as managed services you rent.
Choose Bolt.new if you want to iterate on a web app in the browser with instant previews, and Node.js and Express running on Bolt's own hosting is the right shape for your backend.
Frequently asked questions
Is Appifex better than Bolt.new?
For apps that need a dedicated Python backend, guided App Store submission, or team collaboration with branch isolation, yes. Bolt.new is faster for quick prototypes with its built-in Node.js backend and Bolt Cloud hosting. The key architectural difference is backend: Appifex generates FastAPI (Python); Bolt uses Node.js Server Functions.
Does Bolt.new support mobile apps?
Bolt.new supports Expo/React Native for mobile app generation and QR code preview. However, it doesn't provide a guided App Store submission workflow — you need developer knowledge for code signing and EAS builds. Appifex guides the entire process from build to TestFlight.
Try Appifex for free
See how Appifex compares to Bolt.new — build your first app in minutes.
Related reading
- Building for iOS from one codebase instead of two
- Getting through App Store review
- React Native source, generated rather than assembled
- What Appifex costs next to Bolt.new
- Credits, next to what Bolt.new meters
- Where secrets live when the backend is yours
- Why Appifex generates the server too
- Apps shipped this way, with their repositories
- Appifex vs Lovable
- Appifex vs Replit
- Appifex vs v0
One caveat we hold ourselves to, because this page holds others to it. Connect your GitHub and Expo accounts and almost all of this is yours outright. Skip that step and several pieces stay ours, so it is worth saying which.
Provisioned rather than generated: your database is PostgreSQL on Neon, and authentication — when you enable it — is Neon Auth. The schema and the migrations live in your repository, so the database moves to any Postgres by changing a connection string. Neon Auth does not; swapping it means replacing an auth provider, which is a day of work rather than a rewrite.
Ours until you connect an account: without GitHub repo scope the repository is created in Appifex's organisation rather than yours, and without a connected Expo account TestFlight builds ship under ours. Both are one connection away from being yours, and the ownership claims on this page assume you have made it.
A platform component in mobile apps: generated React Native projects contain a _system/ folder — error handling, Sentry reporting and a floating Appifex button — that the agent will decline to remove on request. It is ordinary TypeScript in your repository and you can delete it yourself after cloning, but while you are working inside Appifex it is not optional, and calling that "no shim to work around" would be too generous.
This comparison is published by Appifex, one of the two products in it. Treat the recommendation accordingly and check the claims. Capability claims were checked against Bolt.new support docs, and pricing against Bolt.new pricing— neither page reproduces the other's full pricing, so check it there — both last verified on . Both products change often — check the current terms before deciding.