Design and diagrams decision
Mockly
A capable technical user can build a narrow self-hosted mockup generator (PNG/video export and a few templates) in a few weeks, but reproducing Mockly's breadth, polish, and template catalog would take much more work and design effort.
Visit website↗Not priced
No pricing page we fetched carried a figure, so there is nothing to compare against. The build side is still real.
$100one-off46 h to build
$0/mo3 h/mo upkeep
No published price to break even against.
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 Mockly alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- User chooses a template (WhatsApp, iMessage, Instagram, etc.), edits text/avatars/timestamps/wallpaper, previews device frame/dark mode/3D view, then exports a PNG or chat video.
What it still won’t have
- Polish and UX refinements (many templates, edge-case handling)
- A catalog of ready-made templates for many platforms
- Cross-browser/device QA and performance optimizations
- Any paid-team features (team management, billing, analytics)
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
First-year cost
No published price
Mockly does not publish a price we could read, so there is nothing to compare against. What building costs is below.
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 single-developer self-hostable web app (React + Vite frontend, Node/Express backend, Postgres for projects, S3-compatible storage for assets) that provides: WYSIWYG chat/post editor (editable messages, avatars, timestamps, read receipts, wallpaper), preview controls (dark mode, device frame, 3D tilt), PNG export via headless Chromium (Puppeteer) and chat-video export by rendering frames to WebM/MP4, project save/load and asset uploads, user session management, and an exports queue worker. Out of scope: multi-tenant billing, analytics dashboard, large template catalog. Include server-side error handling, input validation, unit tests for key modules, and Dockerfiles for frontend/backend.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 4 cited sources+3
- 3/3 assessment runs agreed+4
- Evidence score64
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 · 4
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productMockly | Chat, AI, Social, and Email Mockup Generator
- official docsWhatsApp Chat Mockup Generator | Mockly
- open sourceSawyerHood/draw-a-ui
- open sourceJimLiu/baoyu-design
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.