No-code apps and databases decision
Draftbit
A technical user can build a narrow visual editor that exports React Native code and connects to Supabase, but reproducing Draftbit’s full hosted sandboxes, simulators, integrations, AI agent orchestration, and enterprise features is large and operationally intensive.
Visit website↗Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Draftbit alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- A minimal replacement would let a user visually compose screens, wire simple data sources, preview in-browser, and export working React Native/Expo code.
What it still won’t have
- Cloud isolated sandboxes and managed build servers (hosted dev envs)
- Built-in device simulators and 1-click app store publishing assistance
- Prebuilt marketplace of 100+ integrations and enterprise features (SSO, SLAs)
- AI agent orchestration, credits system, and managed model hosting
What remains hard
- Brand trust
Trusted by 200k+ builders
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 3 seats.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal visual app builder in TypeScript: use React for the UI, a Node/Express API, Postgres (or Supabase) for project storage, and Expo React Native for output. In scope: drag-and-drop canvas with a component palette that serializes projects to JSON, a live preview server that mounts the serialized project and hot-reloads in the browser, a code-export endpoint producing a zipped Expo project, simple REST/Supabase connector UI (store API keys securely per-project), and user auth with seat-based accounts. Out of scope: app store build pipelines, multi-device simulators, multi-agent AI orchestration, and an integrations marketplace. Include error handling, input validation, and automated tests for serialization, preview server, and export functionality.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 5 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- 3/3 assessment runs agreed+4
- Evidence score67
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 5
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productDraftbit — Build Native & Web Apps with AI and Visual Editing
- official pricingPricing & Plans | Draftbit
- official docsVisual App Builder with AI, Code Access, and Publishing | Draftbit
- open sourceBudibase/budibase
- open sourceMrXujiang/h5-Dooring
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
