Short answer: build with a prompt-to-app builder (Lovable, Bolt, v0, Replit) or a coding agent (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Windsurf); use Supabase for the database and login; host on Vercel, Netlify or Cloudflare; take payments with Stripe or Paddle; stop bots with Cloudflare Turnstile; measure with PostHog or Vercel Analytics. Then check that AI assistants can actually read your app with Unvibe, because most AI-built apps look almost empty to ChatGPT’s and Claude’s crawlers.
Disclosure: we make Unvibe, and it’s in this list. Everything else is a tool we use or see used a lot in apps built with AI. Nobody paid to be here.
1. Build it: prompt-to-app builders
These turn a description into a working app with a live preview. They’re the fastest way from idea to something you can click.
Lovable, Bolt, v0 and Replit
Describe the app, watch it appear, keep asking for changes. Lovable and Bolt build full web apps, v0 is strong on interface design, and Replit adds its own hosting and database. Pick the one whose results you like best for your idea; they all get you to a first version fast.
2. Grow it: coding agents
Once the app gets serious, you’ll want an agent that works in your real codebase: editing many files, running commands, fixing bugs.
Cursor, Claude Code, Codex and Windsurf
Cursor and Windsurf are AI code editors. Claude Code and Codex work from the terminal and are great at larger, multi-step changes. All of them can connect to other tools through MCP, which matters later in this list.
3. Store data and log people in: Supabase
Supabase
A Postgres database with sign-up and login (email, Google, GitHub), file storage and row-level security built in. Most builders connect to it in a click. One tip: turn on row-level security for every table, so each user can only read their own data. AI-built apps often forget this.
4. Put it online: hosting
Vercel, Netlify or Cloudflare
Connect your code and every change goes live in a minute, on your own domain, with HTTPS. Vercel is the natural home for Next.js apps; all three handle static sites and server functions well.
5. Get paid: Stripe or Paddle
Stripe or Paddle
Stripe is the most flexible way to take card payments and run subscriptions. Paddle acts as the seller for you (a “merchant of record”), which means it handles sales tax and VAT around the world, a big relief for a solo founder.
6. Keep bots out: Cloudflare Turnstile
Cloudflare Turnstile
A check on your sign-up and login forms that stops bots without making real people solve puzzles. Worth adding before launch, when bot sign-ups start.
7. See what’s working: analytics
PostHog or Vercel Analytics
Vercel Analytics gives simple, privacy-friendly visitor numbers with no setup. PostHog goes deeper: funnels, recordings and feature flags.
8. Make sure AI can read it: Unvibe
This is the step almost everyone skips. More and more people find apps by asking ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity, not by searching. But many apps built with AI draw their content with JavaScript after the page loads, and the crawlers behind those assistants don’t run JavaScript. To them, your app can look nearly blank, so they can’t describe it, and they can’t recommend it.
Unvibe
Unvibe checks how well AI assistants and agents can understand and use your live app, then gives you each fix ready to paste into your coding agent.
- Reads your site the way AI crawlers do: raw HTML with no JavaScript, robots.txt and sitemap, and shows you exactly what they get.
- Visits as the real crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot) and catches firewalls or bot protection that quietly block them.
- Asks AI what your app is, fact-checks the answer against your site, and shows whether AI recommends you when buyers ask.
- Fixes go straight to your coding agent: copy them, or connect Claude Code, Cursor, Codex or VS Code over MCP and let the agent fetch the fixes, apply them and re-check.
- Shows the results: your score after each fix, which sites AI cites for your questions, and the visitors ChatGPT and Perplexity send you.
We built it after our own first vibe-coded app scored 35 out of 100. Read how it got to 80.
When you don’t need it: if your app is an internal tool nobody searches for, or you only get users from ads and word of mouth, AI visibility matters less. If people could ask an assistant “what’s the best app for…” and yours is a good answer, it matters a lot.
The whole stack at a glance
| Job | Tools |
|---|---|
| Build the first version | Lovable, Bolt, v0, Replit |
| Grow the codebase | Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Windsurf |
| Database and login | Supabase |
| Hosting | Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare |
| Payments | Stripe, Paddle |
| Bot protection | Cloudflare Turnstile |
| Analytics | PostHog, Vercel Analytics |
| Readable by AI | Unvibe |
Questions
What is a vibe-coded app?
An app built mostly by describing it to AI tools such as Lovable, Bolt, v0, Replit, Cursor or Claude Code, instead of writing the code by hand.
Why can’t ChatGPT read my vibe-coded app?
Many AI-built apps draw their content with JavaScript after the page loads. The crawlers behind ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity don’t run JavaScript, so they often see an almost empty page. Server-side rendering or pre-rendering, clear text in the HTML, structured data and a sitemap fix most of it.
How do I check if AI can understand my app?
Run a checkup with Unvibe. It reads your live site the way AI crawlers do, visits it as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot, asks an AI what your app is, and gives each fix as an instruction you can paste into your coding agent.