Renamed
vly.ai became Freebuff in 2026
vly.ai
vly.ai is a completely free AI app builder — prompt-to-deployed web apps with a realtime-first backend at $0.
Free is a strong argument, and vly.ai backs it with a real realtime backend rather than a frontend-only toy. If you're prototyping a full-stack web app on a $0 budget and you're fine signing in with GitHub, this belongs in your shortlist. The tradeoff is structural: you're adopting Freebuff Web, not a standalone vendor, so plan for the migration and don't expect an enterprise contract.
Verified 2d ago · liveness 64/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/vly-ai
- Non-technical builders who want a full-stack web app from a prompt at no cost
- Startups validating an MVP before committing any budget
- Hackathon teams that need to ship a working app in 36 hours
- Developers who want to switch between Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and vly agent
- Teams needing on-premise or self-hosted deployment
- Mobile app projects — output is web only
- Buyers who require an SLA, support contract or vendor roadmap commitments
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Skip vly.ai if you need on-prem or self-hosted deployment, a mobile app, or a vendor you can hold to an SLA — it is now a free product inside Freebuff Web, so there is no contract to sign and no roadmap commitment to lean on.
vly.ai sits at the very bottom of the prompt-to-app market: $0/mo on Freebuff Web with unlimited use and no credit system, after all existing vly.ai subscriptions were cancelled. Paid peers such as Lovable start around $25/mo in the vendor's own comparison chart; credit-metered builders like Lovable, Replit and Base44 charge per unit of generation. Free costs nothing but buys you no SLA, so budget for the GitHub sign-in and project transfer instead.
In short
vly.ai — vly.ai is a completely free AI app builder — prompt-to-deployed web apps with a realtime-first backend at $0. Best for Non-technical builders who want a full-stack web app from a prompt at no cost, Startups validating an MVP before committing any budget, Hackathon teams that need to ship a working app in 36 hours. Free to use.
What's new in vly.ai
Checked todayAcross the latest 2 updates: 1 pricing change and 1 news mention.
vly.ai acquired by Freebuff; migration to Freebuff Web
vly.ai was acquired by Freebuff. All projects and new accounts move to Freebuff Web, and all subscriptions were cancelled — the product is now free with no credit system or usage limits.
Verified vly.ai user review posted 3 days ago
A verified vly.ai user rated the platform 10/10, calling it the best web app builder they have used and noting it is the one they stuck with after trying many competitors.
What people actually say about vly.ai — is it worth it?
We ran a structured research pass across product reviews, community discussions, and post-purchase forum threads to surface the patterns vendors won't publish themselves. Below: the recurring strengths, the hidden costs people mention most, and the cohort that consistently regrets adopting this tool.
3 mentions across 1 source (Lemmy) · researched Jul 6, 2026.
Average across the 1 source that answered — each source counts once, not each post.
- +Now completely free with unlimited use after Freebuff acquisition.
- +Supports multiple advanced coding agents: Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI.
- +Natural language prompts generate production-ready full-stack web applications.
- +Managed backend with database included – no DevOps needed.
- +One-click publishing to production with custom domains.
- −No community feedback available – tool is effectively untested by users.
- −Recent acquisition may cause platform instability or feature changes.
- −Migration to Freebuff Web creates confusion on where to access projects.
- −Claimed 'production-ready' apps unverified by real-world deployments.
- −Lack of case studies or testimonials for enterprise use cases.
- • Possible future pricing changes post-acquisition
- • Unknown data storage limits or export restrictions
- • Potential cost for premium integrations or advanced features later
Viability Score
How well maintained and how widely used is vly.ai? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: October 2026
How we score →Key Features
- Convert a natural-language prompt into a deployed full-stack web app
- Run vly agent 2.0, Claude Code, OpenAI Codex or Gemini CLI on the same project
- Managed Convex backend with database, server functions and file storage
- Realtime queries and mutations with live sync by default
- Backend visualization that diagrams queries, mutations, actions, database and file storage
- End-to-end type safety across frontend and backend
- Version control with backups and reverting changes
- Custom domains and one-click publishing to production
- Automatic deployment on Freebuff React infrastructure
- React, Vite and Tailwind CSS frontend with customizable themes
- Asset management and theme customization
- Integration library covering 1000+ services and providers
- GitHub sign-in with project transfer to Freebuff Web
- Iterate with follow-up prompts or interrupt the agent while it is thinking
- Built-in prompt-efficiency guidance in the docs
About vly.ai
vly.ai turns a written prompt into a working, deployed web application, and it no longer charges you anything. You describe the app you want, pick a coding agent, and the platform generates the frontend and the backend together on a React, Vite, Tailwind CSS and Convex stack. The backend is fully managed: a realtime database, server functions and file storage come wired in, along with live sync, queries and mutations, so what you build behaves like a real product rather than a static mockup. Four agents drive generation — vly agent 2.0, Claude Code, OpenAI Codex and Gemini CLI — which matters if you already have opinions about which model writes your code. The docs describe projects ranging from e-commerce sites with full shopping functionality to 3D multiplayer games and real-time collaboration tools. Beyond raw generation, the platform ships the unglamorous pieces teams actually need: version control with backups and reverting, custom domains, one-click publishing to production, automatic deployment, asset and theme customization, and end-to-end type safety. A backend visualization view renders your queries, mutations, actions, database, file storage and live sync as a diagram with explanations, which is genuinely useful when an AI has just written logic you did not read. An integration library covering providers from Stripe and OpenAI to Twilio, GitHub, Slack, AWS, SendGrid and Notion lets you bolt on payments, messaging and AI calls without hand-rolling auth flows. The catch is that vly.ai is no longer a standalone company. Freebuff acquired it, and the product now routes through Freebuff Web: you sign up there with GitHub, and if your GitHub email differs from your vly.ai email you transfer projects manually from Settings. All existing subscriptions were cancelled — the vendor states you will not be charged again, and the platform markets itself as unlimited use with no subscriptions and no credit system. That makes vly.ai an unusually cheap way into prompt-to-app development, and a poor fit for anyone who needs a vendor with a published roadmap, an SLA or self-hosted deployment.
Behind the Verdict
What vly.ai does well is the boring half of app building. The stack is fixed — React and Vite on the front, Tailwind for styling, Convex as a managed backend with a realtime database, server functions and file storage — and because it is fixed, live sync, queries and mutations work by default instead of being something you wire yourself. End-to-end type safety across that boundary is the kind of feature that quietly saves you a weekend. The four-agent choice (vly agent 2.0, Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Gemini CLI) is more than a marketing line: if one agent produces code you dislike, you can point a different one at the same project. And the backend visualization view, which diagrams your queries, mutations, actions, database, file storage and live sync with explanations, addresses the real failure mode of AI-generated software — you ship logic you never actually read. The weaknesses are equally clear. The output is web-only; there is no mobile path, and the fixed React-plus-Convex stack means teams standardized on Postgres or a different backend are not the audience. Adoption now runs through Freebuff Web with GitHub sign-in, and if your GitHub email differs from your vly.ai email you transfer projects manually from Settings — a one-time annoyance that also tells you who owns the product now. All existing subscriptions were cancelled and the product is free with unlimited use and no credit system, which is great news for your budget and a poor predictor of vendor roadmap commitments. The homepage's comparison claims ("10,000x cheaper", "Starts at $3 / $25" charts) and the Trustpilot figures shown alongside the 4.8 average are vendor-authored and vendor-displayed; verify competitor pricing yourself before quoting them. Where it fits: hackathon teams, solo builders validating an idea, and developers who want to test several coding agents against one project without paying a per-credit meter. Where it doesn't: teams needing on-prem or self-hosted deployment, anyone who needs an SLA or a support contract, and mobile-first products.
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Real-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas vly.ai actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
You sign up on Freebuff Web with GitHub, paste a prompt describing your product, and let vly agent 2.0 generate the React frontend and Convex backend. You iterate with follow-up prompts or interrupt the agent mid-thought, then open the backend visualization to check the queries and mutations it wrote.
Outcome: A deployed web app on a custom domain you can send to early users the same week, with no subscription and no credit meter to watch.
Your team splits work across the four agents — one person on Claude Code, another on OpenAI Codex — while using version control with backups and reverting to roll back bad generations. Stripe or SendGrid is added from the integration library without hand-rolling the backend.
Outcome: A working, published app by the deadline, matching the 36-hour Caltech hackathon build the vendor highlights.
You point vly agent 2.0, Claude Code, OpenAI Codex and Gemini CLI at the same project in turn, comparing the generated code, then use the backend visualization to inspect what each produced before committing to one.
Outcome: A decided preference for which agent writes your codebase, tested on your own project rather than on benchmarks.
Use Cases
- Build a full-stack web app from a single prompt
- Rapidly iterate on a startup MVP with AI-driven development
- Create a custom CRM with a managed database and realtime backend
- Deploy a hackathon project in hours with one-click publishing
- Add Stripe payment processing without hand-writing backend code
- Build a real-time collaboration tool with live sync
- Ship an e-commerce site with full shopping functionality
- Prototype a 3D multiplayer game on the platform's stack
Models Under the Hood
as of 2026-10-16
Limitations
- vly.ai has been acquired by Freebuff: new accounts and project access now run through Freebuff Web, requiring GitHub sign-in, and users whose GitHub email differs from their vly.ai email must transfer projects manually via Freebuff Settings.
- The product is no longer standalone — it has been folded into Freebuff Web, and all existing subscriptions were cancelled as it became a free product.
- The stack is fixed to React with a managed Convex backend and realtime architecture, so output is web-app oriented rather than multi-framework, and there is no mobile build path.
- Marketing comparison claims on the site (for example "10,000x cheaper" and the "$3 / $25" starting-price charts) are vendor-authored, and the Trustpilot review counts are shown alongside the product's 4.8 average, so verify competitor pricing independently before quoting.
as of 2026-10-09
Verification history
We have re-verified vly.ai 9 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
Showing the 6 most recent of 9 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Plans compared
For each published vly.ai tier: who it actually fits, and what it adds vs. the previous tier. Cross-reference the cost calculator above for projected annual outlay.
Freebuff Web (formerly vly.ai)
$0/mo
Ideal for
Solo builders, hackathon teams and startups validating an MVP who want a full-stack web app without a credit meter or subscription.
What this tier adds
Starting tier — the whole platform at $0/mo, including the managed Convex backend, realtime live sync, custom domains and the choice of four coding agents.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where vly.ai's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
vly.ai sits at the very bottom of the prompt-to-app market: $0/mo on Freebuff Web with unlimited use and no credit system, after all existing vly.ai subscriptions were cancelled. Paid peers such as Lovable start around $25/mo in the vendor's own comparison chart; credit-metered builders like Lovable, Replit and Base44 charge per unit of generation. Free costs nothing but buys you no SLA, so budget for the GitHub sign-in and project transfer instead.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of vly.ai — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
GitHub sign-in on Freebuff Web and a first prompt take minutes; if your GitHub email differs from your vly.ai email, add time for the manual project transfer in Freebuff Settings. First deploy is automatic, so a shareable URL comes the same session. Expect a few hours of iteration to reach a demo-ready app and a few days for one you would show a real user.
Switching to or from vly.ai
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From Lovable: rebuild your prompt-driven app on vly.ai's React and Convex stack, then add Stripe and other services from the integration library.
- →From Replit: move web-app projects over by re-prompting the app description and letting an agent regenerate the frontend and managed backend.
- →From Base44: re-create the project from your prompt on vly.ai, since the managed Convex backend handles data and realtime sync for you.
- →From a hand-coded React app: keep the frontend patterns, then re-implement server logic as Convex functions and queries.
- →From vly.ai standalone: sign up on Freebuff Web with GitHub and transfer all projects via Settings if your GitHub email differs.
- ↗To Lovable: re-prompt your app description on a credit-metered builder starting around $25/mo per the vendor's own chart.
- ↗To Replit: move web projects to a general-purpose hosted IDE when you want more control over the runtime.
- ↗To a self-hosted stack: export the React frontend and rebuild the Convex backend on your own database if you need on-prem deployment.
- ↗To Base44 or another prompt-to-app tool: re-create the project from your prompt, accepting that the managed backend will differ.
Integrations
Resources & Guides
Tutorials & Learning
Introducing vly.ai: your dev team, automated.
vly ai
building bookface in 15 minutes, without writing code
vly ai
AI for Enterprise App Development | Vly.ai Features, Pros & Cons 🤯 | Vly.ai
Boolean Buffet
YouTube returned 6 videos for “vly.ai”, and we withheld 2: 2 could not be judged, because “vly.ai” is a single word that other videos use for other things. Showing the 4 we can prove are about vly.ai.
Official links
Tools that pair well with vly.ai
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside vly.ai, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
Lovable
Lovable is an AI app builder that turns plain-language prompts into deployed full-stack web apps with hosting, auth and payments.
Bolt.new
Bolt.new is an AI app builder that turns a chat prompt into a deployed full-stack website on Bolt Cloud.
Trickle AI
Trickle builds live websites, apps and AI forms from plain-English prompts on a visual AI canvas.
Featured Head-to-Head Comparisons
Vly Ai vs Spider Cloud
Spider Cloud and vly.ai serve completely different needs. Spider Cloud is a high-performance web crawling & scraping API optimized for AI agents and RAG pipelines, with a Rust engine and per-page pricing. vly.ai (now free via Freebuff) is an AI app builder for non-technical users creating full-stack web apps from natural language. Choose Spider Cloud if you need reliable, cheap data extraction at scale; choose vly.ai if you want to build web apps without coding. They are not direct competitors.
Vly Ai vs Voyage Ai
If you need domain-specific embedding models and rerankers for enterprise RAG on finance/legal docs, Voyage AI is the clear choice despite opaque pricing. If you want a completely free, AI-powered web app builder to prototype full-stack applications rapidly, vly.ai (now owned by Freebuff) is unmatched. They solve entirely different problems.
Vly Ai vs Temporal Ai
For teams building mission-critical AI agents that must survive crashes and recover state, Temporal is the clear choice – open-source, battle-tested by OpenAI and Replit. If you're a non-technical founder or prototyper who wants to spin up a full-stack web app from natural language without worrying about infrastructure, vly.ai (now free via Freebuff) is unbeatable for speed and zero cost. Choose Temporal for durability, vly.ai for instant prototyping.
Alternatives to vly.ai
View allLovable
Lovable is an AI app builder that turns plain-language prompts into deployed full-stack web apps with hosting, auth and payments.
Bolt.new
Bolt.new is an AI app builder that turns a chat prompt into a deployed full-stack website on Bolt Cloud.
Trickle AI
Trickle builds live websites, apps and AI forms from plain-English prompts on a visual AI canvas.
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