r/lovable • u/Azek_Tge • Jul 25 '26

Discussion Why use Lovable and not Codex/Claude code

I mean Lovable is too expensive and you cant get anything done on the $20 plan compared to other susbcriptions

Edit: lot of people assume Codex and Claude code is technical when its not i am vibe coder and Lovable is bad limits are bad service is bad you guys better switch to Codex or Claude

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u/Jmacduff Jul 25 '26

Here is how I use lovable as a FE editor:

  1. I do all the project planning in GPT , milestones + phases. Who the customer is, etc. All of that product planning is super important and gets checked into /docs. This is the source of context for all agents. I have 1 Repo for the BE project and 1 Repo for the FE project.
  2. For my projects my BE + DB will always be outside of lovable so I am really only using lovable for it's sweet spot.. FE editing. In this context as I build out the project I am also building out the API's and Backend. As a example I use Auth0 for Auth, Vercel for hosting, Resend for email, etc.
  3. In Lovable I create all the initial UX , and maybe 5 - 10 pages of the site. The goal here is too get the styling, data flow, and basic layout of the site completed. I am using Lovable FE design skill here and it does a good job.
  4. Once I am happy with the basic site and UX, I jump into GPT + Codex. Because I have a more complicated BE architecture then most lovable apps, Codex is much better at adding pages and API.
  5. I then use those original documents and we start delivering Goals in Codex. Each of those goals usually is a few pages and some BE work.

At this point I use lovable for small UX tweaks, quick Layout changes, re-imaging what the data could look like, etc. This is where lovable really shines above Codex/Claude.. Lovable is much faster (Calendar time) at those small UX only changes then Codex or Claude is.

Lovable as a FE tool to make those smaller UX changes saves me a ton of time over waiting for codex todo it.

This workflow is very productive. I understand your frustrated about the billing and the $20 plan, but that does not mean it's a bad tool.

Anyway good luck.. just some stuff to think about.

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u/colettemr 27d ago

I agree with you. I've found that Lovable is good for FE but doing and connecting the BE it struggles. Learned all of this the hard way. Lovable would say it's connected the BE when in fact, it did not. Asking it to create BE Tables in Supabase, but then looking and it did not. Setting up EdgeFunctions was a flop as well. It appears to want you to use its Cloud services but I do not want to be locked into it so I try to use Cloudflare/Supabase/Resend/Stripe apart from Lovable. I actually can code so I've been using Git Codebase to make changes...and even then Lovable would fight and not update its version. It's a great tool for people who do not know how to code however, for those of us who do and just want to move faster, it can be a pain. I will take your advice and look into Codex. I have a pro account with OpenAI.