vi3ecoding Team
By Massimo Di Chiara, founder of Vi3ecoding — 11+ years in web, 100+ client projects shipped.
Two years ago, asking "can I build a real SaaS in a weekend?" got you laughed at.
Today, it just gets you asked which builder you used.
For me, the answer has been Lovable for the last 18 months. Long enough to ship paid client work on it, including foodla.eu — a multi-restaurant platform with auth, dashboards and search.
Lovable in 2026 isn't a prototyping toy. It's a production tool, if you treat it like one.
Related reading from vi3ecoding:
- The Lovable + Supabase Stack
- Context Files for Lovable Projects
- Ship a SaaS MVP on Lovable in a Weekend
Here's the honest founder's guide — what it is, what it isn't, and the workflow I actually use.
What Lovable actually is
Lovable is an AI app builder. You describe what you want, it ships a real React + Tailwind app, hosted, with optional Supabase backend wired in.
What makes it different from the dozen lookalikes:
- It writes real code you can read and edit.
- It treats Supabase as a first-class backend, not a database afterthought.
- It runs on a context-engineering workflow, not just prompt tricks.
- It ships full-stack — auth, RLS, edge functions, file storage — in the same session.
What it isn't: a no-code drag-and-drop tool. If you wanted Webflow, this isn't it. If you wanted a wrapper around ChatGPT that generates HTML, this isn't that either.
Who Lovable is for
Three groups, in order:
- Founders shipping their own product. MVPs, internal tools, landing pages with logic.
- Vibe coders building for clients. This is most of Vi3ecoding's pipeline now.
- Product people inside larger teams who want to prototype with real code instead of Figma.
If you're a senior engineer who already ships fast with Next.js, Lovable will feel restrictive on day one — and surprisingly useful by week two. The leverage is real even if you're not the target persona on paper.
The workflow I actually use
Stripped down, it's the same every time.
- Write context files (product, stack, design, decisions). ~20 minutes.
- Build the skeleton in one or two prompts. ~30 minutes.
- Wire Supabase — auth, tables, RLS. ~1 hour.
- Ship one feature end-to-end before adding the next.
- Review the diff. Always.
That last rule is the one most people skip. Lovable writes real code. Real code deserves a real review. If you ship without reading the diff, you've outsourced your codebase to a tool you don't control.
The mistakes I made in my first month
So you don't have to make them:
- I asked for whole features in one prompt. They almost worked, which was worse than not working.
- I skipped the context files because I "knew the project." The AI didn't.
- I let scope creep into every prompt. Six follow-ups later the original feature was forgotten.
- I treated Supabase as an afterthought. Auth and RLS need to be designed in, not bolted on.
The fix for all four is the same: smaller asks, richer context, more frequent reviews.
What Lovable is great at
- Getting from idea to clickable product in a single session.
- Honest stack defaults (TanStack Start, Tailwind, Supabase) that don't lock you in.
- Treating the database like a teammate, not a black box.
- Letting non-engineers ship something that doesn't embarrass them.
- Iterating on UI fast — a section that would take 40 minutes to hand-code takes 2 prompts.
What Lovable struggles with
I'd be lying if I said this part didn't exist.
- Very large refactors across many files can drift. Break them up.
- Heavy custom animations and weird third-party widgets still need a human touch.
- It won't fix bad context. Garbage in, garbage app.
- Long chat sessions get noisy — start a fresh conversation when the thread feels heavy.
None of these are blockers. All of them are easier with the right workflow.
Lovable vs the other AI builders
The honest short version, with full comparisons elsewhere on the blog:
- vs Bolt — Bolt is faster for tiny prototypes; Lovable wins on backend, auth, and anything you intend to ship.
- vs v0 — v0 is a UI generator. Lovable builds applications. Different categories.
- vs Cursor — Cursor is for engineers in an existing codebase. Lovable is for builders starting from a spec.
If your goal is a real product with a database, users, and revenue, Lovable is the obvious pick today.
How I price Lovable client work
I won't share my full rate card in a blog post, but the rough shape:
- Landing page with logic: half-day to a day of work, priced like a small project.
- Internal tool with auth and 3–5 screens: 1–2 weeks of work.
- Real SaaS MVP with Supabase: 3–6 weeks of work, priced like a small dev shop project.
The reason that works: I'm not selling hours. I'm selling shipped products. Lovable just compresses the hours. The savings stay with the client and the margin stays with the studio.
A real example: foodla.eu
A multi-restaurant platform. Restaurants onboard themselves, manage menus, log in, search across the database. Real users, real data, real revenue model.
Built on Lovable, backed by Supabase. About 10 hours of focused build time after the context files were in place. The same project in 2022 would have been a multi-month engagement with two developers.
The interesting part isn't the time saved. It's the iteration speed after launch. When the client asks for a new filter on the restaurant search, I ship it the same afternoon — not two sprints from now.
What changes when you commit to Lovable
A few shifts I noticed within three months of taking it seriously:
- I stopped saying yes to projects that were really just landing pages.
- I started saying yes to projects I would have called too ambitious before.
- My proposals got shorter, because timelines got tighter.
- My client conversations shifted from "how" to "what" and "why."
That last one matters most. The tool freed me to spend my time on product judgment instead of glue code.
Should you bet your next project on Lovable?
If you ship products, yes. If you ship pitch decks, no.
Lovable rewards founders who think like operators and punishes people who think like prompt tourists.
The tool isn't the bottleneck anymore. You are. That's the good news.