Short answer: Lovable (or Bolt) wins if you want to build a real web app that you actually own; Hostinger’s AI Builder — where Horizons now lives as “Agentic mode” — wins if you want the cheapest path to a simple site that is already hosted. They are not really the same category of product: Lovable is an app builder with code export, while Hostinger’s tool is a website builder with AI added on. The right pick depends entirely on what you are building, so start there and the pricing math gets easy.
The decision table
| Hostinger AI Builder (ex-Horizons) | Lovable | Bolt.new | Base44 | v0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $25/mo (Pro, checked Sep 2026) | $25/mo (Pro, checked Sep 2026) | $20/mo (Starter, checked Oct 2026) | $20/mo (Premium, checked 2026) | |
| Billing model | AI credits for Agentic mode; Manual (drag-and-drop) mode costs nothing | Monthly message credits | Token-based metering | Monthly message credits, no rollover | Token-based credit metering |
| Free tier | 5 free credits to try Agentic mode | $0 — 5 credits/day (30/mo), checked Sep 2026 | $0 — 1M tokens/mo (300K/day), checked Sep 2026 | $0 — 25 credits/mo, checked Oct 2026 | $0 — $5 of credits/mo, checked 2026 |
| Custom domain | Yes — connects to your Hostinger hosting | Yes (paid plans) | Yes (paid, deploys via Netlify) | Yes (paid plans) | Yes, through Vercel |
| Code ownership / export | Site is hosted on Hostinger; no repo export | GitHub sync; full code export | Full export; deploy anywhere | Limited — apps live on Base44 | Exports to a Next.js project on Vercel |
| Best for | Simple sites plus hosting in one bill | Real web apps you own and can move | Developers who like token pricing | Non-coders building internal tools | React/Next.js UI work in the Vercel world |
Price check dates: Lovable (checked Sep 2026 via dev.to/dotsquares); Bolt.new (checked Sep 2026 via aialleyway/nocode.mba); Base44 (checked Oct 3–5, 2026 via ampm-aiops/taskade); v0 (checked 2026 via laracopilot/dev.to). Hostinger AI Builder pricing is only ever shown through the shortcode below, never typed by hand.
AI Website Builder (Premium)
48-month plan, paid upfront
Renews at $10.99/mo
- AI website generation
- 400+ templates
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Free domain for 1 year
- 5 AI credits (one-time gift)
Wait — what happened to Hostinger Horizons?
If you are shopping for “Hostinger Horizons” in late 2026, here is the honest background: in August 2026, Hostinger merged Horizons into its AI Builder, and the vibe-coding experience now lives on as “Agentic mode.” There is no standalone Horizons product or standalone Horizons pricing anymore — when this page says “Horizons,” it means Agentic mode inside Hostinger AI Builder (deal 63 above).
How it works: Agentic mode builds pages and apps for you from prompts, and it spends AI credits as it works. Hostinger’s own documentation gives rough guidance: a simple business page costs around 5–10 credits, while a complex web app can cost 15+ credits. Two things soften the cost: the classic Manual (drag-and-drop) mode costs nothing and uses zero credits, and you get 5 free credits to try Agentic mode before spending anything. The catch we will not hide: top-up credit prices are not published (checked Oct 8, 2026). You cannot do exact per-project cost math for Horizons the way you can for Lovable or Bolt, because Hostinger does not list what extra credits cost. Keep that in mind before you plan a big build.
The honest verdict
Pick Lovable or Bolt if you are building an actual application — a dashboard, a SaaS tool, a marketplace, anything with a database and user accounts. You get real code you can export, put on GitHub, and deploy anywhere, so you are never trapped. Pick Hostinger’s AI Builder if you are building a simple site — a business homepage, a portfolio, a landing page — and you like the idea of the builder, the hosting, the domain, and the email living on one bill with one support chat. Pick Base44 if you cannot code at all and want the database, auth, and hosting handled invisibly. Pick v0 if you live in the React/Next.js world and mostly need UI generated fast.
The uncomfortable truth for Hostinger fans: Agentic mode is a website builder with AI, not an app platform. It is genuinely good at what it does — fast, cheap, hosted, done — but if your project outgrows “a nice site,” you will hit the ceiling and wish you had started on Lovable or Bolt, where the code is yours. Conversely, paying $25/month on Lovable to host what is basically a brochure site is burning money; that is exactly the job Hostinger’s builder does for far less.
How AI credits compare: the real cost math
Every tool here sells you the same thing — AI work — in a different wrapper. Here is the unit math, from verified prices:
- Lovable: Pro is $25/mo for 100 credits (checked Sep 2026) — about $0.25 per credit, and unused Pro credits roll over, which is genuinely consumer-friendly.
- Bolt.new: Pro is $25/mo for 10M tokens (checked Sep 2026) — token metering rewards tight, efficient prompts and punishes rambling ones.
- Base44: Starter is $20/mo for 100 message credits (checked Oct 2026) — about $0.20 per credit, but there is no rollover, so unused credits evaporate each month.
- v0: Premium is $20/mo for $20 of credits (checked 2026) — token-based, so heavy generations burn through it faster than the flat number suggests.
- Hostinger Agentic mode: 5 free credits to start; Manual mode free; paid credit top-up prices not published (checked Oct 8, 2026).
Now the part most comparisons skip: you are not really paying per project, you are paying per month. If a landing page takes 10 Lovable credits, that is $2.50 of your $25 plan at the per-credit rate — but you paid $25 whether you built one page or ten. The real cost question is utilization: a busy builder who burns all 100 Lovable credits gets full value; someone who builds one site and idles pays $25/month for $2.50 of AI work. Base44’s no-rollover policy makes this worse — every credit you do not use is money gone — while Lovable’s rollover makes it the most forgiving paid plan here.
Free tiers tell the same story in miniature. Lovable’s 30 free credits a month (checked Sep 2026) can genuinely produce a simple site without paying anything. Bolt’s 1M free tokens a month (checked Sep 2026) is generous for tinkering but burns fast on big builds. Base44’s 25 free credits (checked Oct 2026) and v0’s $5 of credits (checked 2026) are tasters, not workshops. Hostinger’s 5 free credits sit in the same “try it and see” category — enough for roughly half a simple business page by Hostinger’s own 5–10 credit estimate.
And the honest footnote on Horizons: because Hostinger does not publish top-up prices, nobody can tell you what a 50-credit project costs there. The plan price via
AI Website Builder (Premium)
48-month plan, paid upfront
Renews at $10.99/mo
- AI website generation
- 400+ templates
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Free domain for 1 year
- 5 AI credits (one-time gift)
Who should pick Hostinger’s AI Builder (Horizons)
- Simple sites, done cheaply. A business homepage, a restaurant site, a portfolio, a landing page for an ad campaign — Agentic mode can draft it in minutes, and Manual mode lets you polish for free.
- One-bill people. Builder, hosting, domain, and email from one provider with one support chat is worth real money in saved hassle, even if each piece is not best-in-class.
- Budget-first builders. The entry price via undercuts every $20–25/month app builder here, and you are not paying for app infrastructure you will never use.75% OFF Verified Oct 8, 2026
AI Website Builder (Premium)
$2.99/mo$11.99/mo48-month plan, paid upfront
Renews at $10.99/mo
- AI website generation
- 400+ templates
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Free domain for 1 year
- 5 AI credits (one-time gift)
- Cautious triers. Five free credits plus a free Manual mode means you can evaluate the whole thing before spending a cent.
Related reading on this site: our Hostinger Horizons overview covers the Agentic/Manual split in detail, and the AI credits coupon page tracks any current discount on the AI Builder plans.
Who should pick Lovable or Bolt
- Real applications. Dashboards, SaaS MVPs, marketplaces, tools with user accounts and databases — this is what Lovable and Bolt are built for, and it is where Hostinger’s builder hits its ceiling.
- Code ownership matters to you. Lovable syncs to GitHub and exports full code; Bolt lets you export everything and deploy anywhere. Your project survives even if you cancel the subscription.
- You might outgrow the builder. Starting on Lovable or Bolt means a developer can take over the exported codebase later. Starting on a locked-in builder means rebuilding from scratch.
- Lovable if you want polish and rollover credits; Bolt if you prefer token metering and like deploying through Netlify. At $25/mo Pro each (both checked Sep 2026), the choice is workflow, not price.
One caution: $25/month is $300/year. If your “app” is really a five-page brochure site, that is an expensive way to host it — and this is exactly the case where Hostinger’s builder wins on value.
Who should pick Base44 or v0
Base44 (Starter $20/mo for 100 message credits, checked Oct 2026) is the pick for non-technical builders who want everything invisible: database, authentication, and hosting are handled for you, and the prompt-to-app loop is famously smooth. The trade is lock-in — your app lives on Base44, export is limited, and unused credits do not roll over, so it suits active builders rather than occasional tinkerers. It is also worth knowing Base44 was acquired by Wix, so expect the roadmap to bend toward the Wix ecosystem over time.
v0 (Premium $20/mo for $20 of credits, checked 2026) is a specialist tool: it generates React/Next.js UI at very high quality and deploys straight into the Vercel ecosystem. If you are a developer (or working with one) and your stack is already Next.js on Vercel, v0 slots in beautifully. If you are not in that world, its value drops sharply — it is not a general website builder and does not try to be.
Limitations at a glance
| Limitation | Hostinger AI Builder | Lovable / Bolt | Base44 | v0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vendor lock-in | High — site lives on Hostinger hosting, no repo export | Low — export code, deploy anywhere | High — apps live on Base44 | Medium — tied to the Vercel/Next.js stack |
| Credit expiry | Top-up terms unpublished (checked Oct 8, 2026) | Lovable rolls over; Bolt tokens reset monthly | No rollover — use it or lose it | Credits reset monthly |
| Real-app ceiling | Low — built for sites, not apps | High — databases, auth, APIs | Medium-high for internal tools | High for UI, needs your backend |
| Pricing transparency | Weak — credit top-up prices not published | Strong — credits/tokens listed per plan | Strong — message credits per plan | Strong — credit values per plan |
| Best free tier for a real try | 5 credits — a genuine taste | 30 credits/mo — can build a small site free | 25 credits/mo — a solid trial | $5 credits/mo — a quick taste |
FAQ
Is Hostinger Horizons still available?
Yes, but not as a standalone product. In August 2026 Hostinger merged Horizons into its AI Builder, where the vibe-coding experience continues as “Agentic mode.” Pricing now goes through the AI Builder plans — see
AI Website Builder (Premium)
48-month plan, paid upfront
Renews at $10.99/mo
- AI website generation
- 400+ templates
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Free domain for 1 year
- 5 AI credits (one-time gift)
Is Hostinger’s AI Builder free?
Partly. Manual (drag-and-drop) mode costs nothing and uses no credits, and Agentic mode includes 5 free credits to try. Beyond that you are on a paid AI Builder plan, and extra credit top-up prices are not published (checked Oct 8, 2026) — so test with the free credits before committing to a big build.
Which is better: Lovable or Hostinger Horizons?
For building a real web application you own, Lovable — it exports full code you can put on GitHub and deploy anywhere, while Hostinger’s builder keeps your site on Hostinger hosting with no repo export. For a simple business site or landing page where you want builder plus hosting on one cheap bill, Hostinger’s AI Builder is the better value.
Do unused AI credits roll over?
It depends on the platform. Lovable’s Pro credits roll over (checked Sep 2026), which is the most forgiving policy here. Base44 credits do not roll over (checked Oct 2026) — unused credits expire each month. Bolt’s tokens and v0’s credits reset monthly. Hostinger has not published its credit top-up terms (checked Oct 8, 2026).
Can I export my code from these builders?
From Lovable (GitHub sync, full export) and Bolt (full export, deploy anywhere), yes. From v0 you get a Next.js project for the Vercel ecosystem. From Base44 and Hostinger’s AI Builder, effectively no — your project lives on their platform. If future portability matters, start on Lovable or Bolt.
Can I use my own domain name?
Yes on all five, with paid plans. Hostinger’s AI Builder connects a domain to your Hostinger hosting; Lovable and Base44 support custom domains on paid tiers; Bolt deploys through Netlify where you can attach a domain; v0 publishes through Vercel’s domain system.
The bottom line
Match the tool to the project, not the hype. Building an app you might scale, sell, or hand to a developer? Lovable or Bolt at $25/mo (both checked Sep 2026) — the code export alone justifies it. Building a site that needs to look good, load fast, and cost little? Hostinger’s AI Builder via
AI Website Builder (Premium)
48-month plan, paid upfront
Renews at $10.99/mo
- AI website generation
- 400+ templates
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Free domain for 1 year
- 5 AI credits (one-time gift)
Related: Hostinger Horizons (Agentic mode) overview · Hostinger AI credits coupon · Hostinger coupon code · Best VPS for n8n