TeleportHQ compared with Lovable
Lovable is an AI tool that generates a web app from a prompt; you refine it by chatting, and the result is a codebase you deploy and maintain. TeleportHQ also starts from a description of your business, but its AI builds a site inside a visual editor, TeleportHQ hosts it, and the database, sign-in, a store, bookings and an admin panel are ready-made features you switch on. This guide compares the two fairly.
Who this guide is for
- You're choosing between TeleportHQ and Lovable for a new site or web app.
- You built something in an AI app builder and want to know what moving to TeleportHQ changes.
The short answer
If you want a custom app with its own code, built and changed by prompting, an AI app builder is made for that; you (or a developer) look after the code, the deployment and the backend service. If you want a site or app that's finished when the AI stops, hosted, with the common features already working, and that you change by clicking as well as by chatting, TeleportHQ fits better: it runs the live features for you and gives you the tools to measure and grow the site from the same project. On a paid plan a website's code is yours to download; a web app's (a project with a store, bookings, sign-in, a blog or a help center) is not, so a project that needs those runs on TeleportHQ hosting.
TeleportHQ and Lovable side by side
The Lovable column describes how an AI app builder usually works, not a feature list. Check Lovable's own site for what it includes today.
| What you decide on | TeleportHQ | Lovable, an AI app builder |
|---|---|---|
| How the site is built | AI plans and builds the site from your business description, in the editor (AI Website Builder); everything stays editable. | You describe the app in a chat and the AI writes its code; you keep prompting until it's right. |
| Editing | Click any element in the visual editor, or ask the AI Assistant; both work on the same site. | By chatting with the AI, and in the code, by you or a developer. |
| Hosting | By TeleportHQ, with a staging address, your own domain and a built-in database. | The tool deploys the app, or you host the code yourself; live data and sign-in usually come from a separate backend service. |
| Storage and data | Included with the plan: the project's files (pictures, videos, documents), the built-in database with up to 200,000 records per table on a paid plan, the data each web app keeps, and monthly bandwidth; nothing to buy or connect separately (the limits per plan). | Lovable hosts the app; its files and data live in a database service you connect, such as Supabase, with its own account, plan and limits. |
| Store, bookings, accounts | Ready-made features you switch on: online store, Bookings, sign-up and login and an admin panel. | Written as custom code by the AI, on request, on top of the backend service. |
| Languages | Built in, with automatic translation. | Written into the code by the AI, on request. |
| SEO | Titles, descriptions, sitemap and redirects (how SEO works). | Whatever you ask the AI to add: titles, descriptions, a sitemap. |
| After it's live | Analytics, a site health audit, keyword ideas and a competitor benchmark, campaigns and newsletters, and sales or booking reports, all under Growth in the editor. | Left to services you add and wire yourself: analytics, email, marketing. |
| What you can take with you | On a paid plan, a website's code as HTML, React, Next.js, Vue, Nuxt or Angular, or an export to GitHub (code download). Websites only: switching on sign-in, a store, bookings, a blog or a help center makes the project a web app; the editor warns first ("Code download will no longer be available"), there is no switch back, and a web app's code can't be downloaded, so it runs on TeleportHQ hosting from then on. | The code, from day one: a codebase you host and maintain, or hand to a developer. |
| Who does the technical work | You build; TeleportHQ hosts the site and runs its live features (websites vs web apps), with support a chat away. | You and the AI, plus a developer when the code needs fixing. |
What carries over if you switch from Lovable
- Your live app's pages, if it's online: Generate from URL, on the first step of the AI Website Builder, is the way to move them over: it copies the text of up to 12 pages and rebuilds them with the same wording in a new design. Images aren't copied.
- A page's look: screenshot it, open the AI Assistant, click Attach image and ask for that layout.
- Your HTML and CSS: a generated app is usually React, not plain HTML, so ask the AI for "plain HTML and CSS in one file" for a page, then paste it into the HTML Import window.
- Your design, if it's in Figma: the TeleportHQ Figma plugin opens it as a new project.
- Your pictures and data: upload pictures in the Assets Manager, and import records from a spreadsheet file into a database table.
What's different day to day
- Features are switches, not prompts, in the Plugins tab, and they work straight away: the database, sign-in and admin panel are part of the project, with no separate backend service to set up.
- You click to edit as well as chat; editing by hand uses no AI tokens.
- Publishing is a button, with a staging address for testing first.
- Your numbers are in the same place as your site: Growth in the left sidebar shows who visits, next to the audits, the reports and the Marketing Studio.
- AI features use AI tokens, a balance shared by your workspace.
Try TeleportHQ
Every new TeleportHQ account starts with a free 7-day trial, with no credit card, on 1 project. See How does the TeleportHQ free trial work?. Then follow How to create your first website in TeleportHQ.