There’s a lot of hype around AI and with that a lot of confusion. Unless you use these tools daily, it’s very difficult to understand who’s honest and who’s lying.
After the first release of ChatGPT I’ve been trying all sorts of AI models. And since February 2025 I’ve been working on Reach Kit. As part of that project I tested (so far) over 25 different models also for writing, not just for creating new code.
I tried generating apps with Cursor, of course VS Code, and dedicated website/app generators like Bolt and Lovable.
I keep seeing users get confused about what these tools actually are. These AI “no-code” apps are not the same as proper no-code tools, and this difference should matter to you especially if you manage an online business.
Don’t confuse no-code tools with AI code tools
When I talk about genuine no-code tools, I’m referring to platforms like WordPress, Webflow, and Framer. These tools can save you a massive amount of budget that would normally go toward custom development costs. But here’s what makes them really valuable: you can trust these tools way more than AI-generated code.
These no-code platforms handle authentication, security, and tons of features that just work for you behind the scenes. You see the website builder interface, but underneath, these platforms are managing complex systems that would take months to build from scratch.
And most of all, they’re predictable and reliable. Sure, if you use a page builder in a WP website, sometimes a plugin update may cause some bugs, but as long as your website is well-built, there will be no surprises. They’re literally WYSIWYG editors: What You See Is What You Get.
The Problem with Bolt, Lovable, and similar tools
Regardless of what their marketing department says, these new tools are incredibly fragile right now for building anything serious. They simply can’t compete with established no-code platforms. They might have their place in specific situations, but their role is extremely limited.
What do Bolt and Lovable do? Their promise, is that with instructions in plain English, you can generate entire apps, regardless of their complexity, without technical knowledge.
I tried Lovable and I’m using Bolt right now (as a senior full stack developer) as an experiment on a side project, for a few months now. I can tell they’re lying. And it isn’t a small lie, it’s a huge pile of lies. I’ll publish an article about that project on this website when it’s ready, with all the details on how it went.
Despite the lies, these tools have their place and their utility, they aren’t useless. They just belong to a very different space compared to what they claim.
On these apps there’s no “What You See Is What You Get” editor. In both Lovable and Bolt you don’t see the underlying mess of code these tools are producing. You also can’t estimate or anticipate all the time that will be wasted later when you will need to manually fix that code.
You may create an app that more or less works, but unless is dead simple, that’s just an illusion. There’s a high risk of finding out how broken that app really is, only when it will be in production.
If you’re reading this article I highly doubt you’re interested in those kinds of tools: all the clients I’ve worked with would never want to maintain and build an app from scratch. If they have one thing in common is that they want something simple to edit and use.
Why WordPress & CO will win over AI “No-Code” tools
WordPress, Webflow, Framer, and similar established tools that integrate AI features will push these code generation tools out of the market one by one. It won’t be the other way around.
If you’re a WordPress user you will benefit from AI, but it will be a different kind of AI compared to Bolt and Lovable. I expect that WordPress will integrate AI tools that will help you generate new templates for your WordPress website, in a more reliable way compared to alternatives.
Probably, you will write a prompt in English on your editor, and WordPress will generate for you a new template. I’m quite sure that this tool will not be able to generate a professional layout with one prompt: after generating it you will need to edit it. But still, that will be a huge amount of time saved compared to starting from a blank page.
It’s way easier (and cheaper) to use an LLM to generate a block-based layout for you in WordPress compared to asking these models to create apps from scratch in Lovable. And most of all it will be easier for you to edit content: because after all generating block layouts will just be a new feature in the block editor, a tool you’ve been already using for years.
Meanwhile, if you look at tools like Bolt and Lovable, most of their users are confused when they need to do trivial tasks, like changing a string of text in their app.
Because there’s no page editor there: it’s all code with a chat on the left side of the screen. And for less informed users it gets even worse: they find themselves paying LLM tokens just to edit their website content (!).
The Irony of “No-Code” AI Tools
In these “no-code” AI tools like Bolt, there’s actually a huge amount of code involved. They’re really code tools. The fact that they market themselves as no-code is misleading. You’re still dealing with code; it’s just generated by AI instead of written by a human developer. That code will need to be maintained, edited, refined, optimized.
I would never put true no-code tools like WordPress in the same category as Bolt and similar AI code generators. They’re solving different problems for different types of users.
Making the Right Choice for Your Business
If you’re running a successful business with steady monthly revenue, your website strategy should focus on reliability, ease of management, and proven results. Established no-code platforms give you all of this, plus the peace of mind that comes with mature, tested technology.
And you will still benefit from AI features. On May 2025, WordPress created an ad-hoc team to work exclusively on these.
The choice between different no-code platforms depends on your specific needs, technical comfort level, and long-term business goals. I sell services mostly to businesses that use WordPress but I have no problem saying that WP is not always the best choice for everyone. I spend part of my time testing new tech stacks beyond WordPress, and experimenting with them on my side projects.
If you’re unsure which approach would work best for your particular situation, you can book a consultation with me to discuss your options.