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The Stack / Coding
Bolt
03 CreationYes as a prototyping seat — Bolt gets from idea to clickable web app faster than anything, which makes it perfect for validating before you invest. Production apps outgrow it; that's fine, that was never the job.
The job in the stack
The rapid-prototype seat: spinning up working web app drafts from a prompt, in minutes, in the browser.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1M tokens/mo (300K daily cap) |
| Pro | $25/mo | 10M tokens/mo, no daily limit, 1-month rollover, custom domains, no Bolt branding; up to 28% off annual. Bolt Forge included until Oct 18, 2026 |
| Teams | $30/mo per member | Per-member token allotment, not pooled |
| Enterprise | custom |
Pricing verified 2026-10-17. Plans change — the source of truth is Bolt's own pricing page.
Models & versions
- Bolt (StackBlitz WebContainers) Full-stack apps running entirely in-browser
- Bolt Forge (research preview) Third agent option running open models (GLM 5.3 Flash default; GLM 5.3, Kimi K3, DeepSeek v4 Pro experimental). The pricing page lists it as included on Pro until Oct 18, 2026, and post-preview terms are unpublished. Prompts and code are anonymized and shared with partners for model training, so keep client or proprietary code on the Standard/Max agents
The honest read
What works
- + Fastest prompt-to-working-prototype loop available
- + Runs full-stack in the browser — zero environment setup
- + One-click deploy and easy export of the generated code
What breaks
- − Token burn on iteration is significant — vague prompts cost real money
- − Complex app logic degrades as the codebase grows
- − Long-term maintenance means exporting into a real dev workflow anyway
Use it for
- →Validating an app idea this afternoon
- →Landing pages and interactive demos from a prompt
- →Non-developers producing a working draft to hand an engineer
Skip it if
- ×You need hosting, database, and auth managed together — Replit's bundle wins
- ×You're building the long-term codebase — start in Cursor
Questions operators ask
?Bolt or Replit?
Bolt for the fastest possible prototype; Replit when the thing needs to keep existing — database, auth, hosting, and an agent that maintains it. Many operators use Bolt to validate, then rebuild where it will live.
What changed
- Prices hold on bolt.new/pricing: Free $0 (1M tokens/mo, 300K daily cap), Pro $25/mo (10M tokens, rollover), Teams $30/member, Enterprise custom. The $9 Lite research-preview plan is no longer on the pricing page (its sign-ups closed Oct 14), so we removed the row. Pro now shows "Bolt Forge included until Oct 18" and no terms past that date.
- Freshness sweep: Free, Pro ($25), Teams ($30/member) unchanged. New: Bolt Forge, a research preview (Sep 14 to Oct 14, 2026) that runs open models with no daily limit, free on individual Pro plans. Also a waitlisted $9/mo Bolt Lite plan that is Forge-only. Forge prompts and code are anonymized and shared with Bolt’s partners to train open models, and Forge is not available on Teams or Enterprise.
- Freshness sweep: no change, verified against bolt.new/pricing — Free (1M tokens/mo, 300K daily cap), Pro $25 (10M tokens, rollover), Teams $30/member, Enterprise custom, up to 28% annual discount all hold.
- Re-verified against bolt.new/pricing: Free (1M tokens/mo, 300K daily cap), Pro $25 (10M tokens, rollover), Teams $30/member, Enterprise custom — all unchanged. One correction: the annual discount is now up to 28%, not the 10% we had on record.
- Re-verified against bolt.new/pricing: Free 1M tokens/mo with 300K daily cap, Pro $25 (10M tokens), Teams $30/member — all unchanged. Aggregator claims of a 13M Pro bump and a 150K free daily cap do not match the official page; not acted on. Added lovable to alternatives.
- Freshness sweep: verified real pricing — Free 1M tokens/mo, Pro $25/mo (10M tokens, rollover), Teams $30/mo per member, Enterprise custom.
- Seeded from January 2026 baseline.
Give Bolt a job
The rapid-prototype seat: spinning up working web app drafts from a prompt, in minutes, in the browser.
Try Bolt →Alternatives with different jobs
Lovable
03 CreationThe vibe-coding seat: full web apps with auth, database, and hosting from conversation, aimed at founders who don't code.
Replit
03 CreationThe build-and-ship seat: prototyping internal tools and small apps with an AI agent, hosted the moment they exist.
Cursor
03 CreationThe hands-on coding seat: an editor where AI agents write, refactor, and navigate the codebase with you.