Comparison
Juxtaboard and AI app builders
Nine slides on who owns the code, where business rules live, and where everything runs. Where each product sits is our reading of public documentation, not a measurement.
On a phone you see a short version of each slide.
Positioning
Speed or freedom? Have both.
Builders trade freedom for speed. Toolkits trade readiness for freedom. Juxtaboard gives you your own app on a business that's ready to run.
Positioning view, not a measurement.
Business-ready out of the box →
Freedom and ownership: your agent, your code, your hosting →
Ready, but the UI is theirs
Your app, a ready business behind it
Fast demo, closed box
Build everything yourself
Retool
Airtable + Softr
Base44
Lovable · Bolt.new
Replit
Supabase · own stack
Juxtaboard
Juxtaboard — between AI builders and building from scratch
Own your frontend. Rent or run the engine.
AI app builders generate the whole app inside their box, again for every project. Juxtaboard splits the job: you own the app your customers see, and the business engine behind it is ready, reusable, and yours to run wherever you choose.
Yours
Your app
Web or PWA your customers use
Built with any coding agent
Your code, in your repo
Hosted anywhere: it's static
+
Ready-made
Juxtaboard Engine
The business behind your app, configured by your agent over MCP
Rules & automations
Workflow & status models
Connected tables
Back Office for your team
Agents & customer inbox
Connectors & observability
Runs on Juxtaboard Cloud, or on your servers with Docker
1
Your agent
Claude Code, Codex, other MCP-compatible agents
2
Any host
Your frontend deploys wherever you like
3
Any server
Juxtaboard Cloud, or your own infrastructure
How it works
“Make this mockup a working app.” What happens next.
You start with
A static mockup, e.g. from Claude Design
A Juxtaboard project, MCP connected
One sentence to Claude
1
Claude
Learns the platform
Loads the Juxtaboard platform skill and reads ready recipes for common business setups.
2
Claude
Reads your mockup's data model
Lists become tables. On-screen math becomes server formulas. The role switch becomes user groups. Buttons become actions.
3
You answer
Asks how your business works
Who uses it? Who may see and do what? Which statuses, payments and reminders? In plain language.
4
Claude + MCP
Builds the Engine side
Tables, status models, user groups, automations, a payment slot, then the access contract. Every save is checked.
5
Claude + SDK
Connects your screens
Keeps your design and removes the fake data. Typed hooks, real sign-in, and a checkout where the server sets the price.
6
Claude
Checks every role
Signs in as each role and calls actions directly: a hidden button must also be a locked door. A verification step, not a security audit.
7
You deploy
Deploy anywhere. Open the Back Office.
The static frontend goes to any host. Your team finds the tables, queues and history already in place.
What you did
Designed the screens, answered questions, pressed deploy.
What you didn't do
Write or host a backend.
Why not build it yourself
A mockup shows the tip of the app.
Customers see the screens. Everything a real service runs on sits below the waterline, and with a do-it-yourself backend, every item is yours to build, secure and maintain.
Juxtaboard Engine provides what sits below the line. You build the tip.
Screens
What the mockup showsWhat the service needs
Sign-in for customers and staff
Who sees which rows and fields
Status rules: who may approve
Server-side totals, balances, prices
Reminders, deadlines, schedules
Server-set prices and payment status
Integrations and webhooks with retries
A back office for your team
WhatsApp, Telegram, email inbox
Change history
Run history and logs
Agents that process the work
Why not build the backend yourself
Your agent can write a backend.
The question is whether you want to own one.
01
Security fails silently
In 2025, researchers reported 170+ apps from one AI app builder exposing tables because row-level security was missing.*
Engine: access rules for rows, fields and actions enforced on the server
02
Logic leaks into screens
Totals summed in the browser, roles checked in the UI. Fine with 20 rows; wrong at row 501.
Engine: formulas on the server; the app asks what it may do
03
Every rule change multiplies
A rule in code is copied into checkout, admin, notifications and reports. Miss one copy, ship a bug.
Engine: the rule lives once, everything uses it
04
Your team needs a second app
Tables, queues, approvals, calendars, dashboards, an inbox. Another application to build and maintain.
Engine: the Back Office is included
05
Money and time bite
Double charges on retry, prices sent from the browser, reminders in the wrong time zone.
Engine: server-set prices, payment status, scheduled jobs
06
Day two never ends
Backups, migrations, monitoring, scaling, patches, on-call. The stateful part is the hard part.
Engine: run by us in Juxtaboard Cloud (or self-host and run it yourself)
07
Every app is a one-off
Ten client apps built DIY means ten different backends, each with its own bugs and security review.
Engine: ten frontends, one shared foundation
When DIY is the right call
Your core logic is truly unique, you have backend engineers who want to own it, or compliance dictates a custom stack.
Own what makes you different. Let the Engine handle the rest.
* Publicly reported in 2025. The vendor disputes it, saying each customer is responsible for their app's data. Server-side rules still need to be configured and tested.
Own it = maintain it
Own what makes you different.
Don't own the plumbing.
Yours to build and maintain
Partly provided
Provided and maintained for you
AI app builder
Lovable, Base44, Bolt.new
AI coding environment
Replit and similar
Juxtaboard
Your frontend + Engine
Screens and branding
Generated, yours
Yours
Yours: any agent, any design
Sign-in, roles, permissions
Auth managed; rules generated
Yours
Engine
Business data and calculations
Generated per app
Yours
Connected tables, formulas
Workflows, statuses, schedules
Generated per app
Yours
State models, automations
Staff back office
Another app to generate
Another app to write
Back Office included
Customer inbox, messengers
Generated per app
Yours
Shared inbox, WhatsApp, Telegram
Integrations and webhooks
Generated per app
Yours
Connectors, retries, history
Monitoring and audit trail
Basic logs
Yours
Run history, change log, telemetry-ready
Where the backend runs
Vendor's cloud
Vendor or you: you run it
Our cloud or your servers
With Juxtaboard you write and own the part customers see. The parts every business needs are ready, built once and reused, and you can still run them yourself.
Side by side
Same goal. Different deal.
Built in
Partly / you build it
Not available
Lovable
Replit
Base44
Juxtaboard
Which AI agent builds it?
Lovable's agent, in Lovable
Replit Agent, in Replit
Base44's AI, in Base44
Your choice: Claude Code, Codex, other MCP agents
Do you own the frontend code?
Yes, GitHub sync
Yes, it's your project
Code export on paid plans
Yes, in your repo from day one
Where do business rules live?
Generated code and functions
Code you maintain
Inside Base44's platform
In the Engine: rules you can inspect
Workflow and status models
Write them in code
Write them in code
Generated per app
Built in: transitions, roles, timers
Connected business tables
Postgres; logic is yours
Database; logic is yours
Generated entities
Linked records, formulas, rollups
Back office for your team
Generate another app
Write another app
Basic data admin
Included: 9 views, dashboards, inbox
Host the frontend anywhere
Lovable hosting or export
Mainly Replit Deployments
Base44 hosting
Any host: Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare
Run the backend yourself
Manual Supabase migration
Your code to host
No
Self-host with Docker, by arrangement
Based on public documentation and reviews, October 2026. “You build it” means it can be built in code: your agent generates it and you maintain it.
Architecture
Where your app lives
Typical AI app builder
Inside the vendor's platform
Vendor's editor + vendor's agent
generates
Frontend
(exportable)
(exportable)
Generated backend
Database · auth · functions · business logic, written again for every app
Database · auth · functions · business logic, written again for every app
Staff admin? Generate another app.
Rules and hosting usually stay with the vendor, and each project gets its own generated backend.
Juxtaboard
Any coding agent: Claude Code · Codex · other MCP agents
writes code
configures over MCP
Your frontend
Web or PWA
Your repo
Any host or CDN
Stateless: scales on its own
Your repo
Any host or CDN
Stateless: scales on its own
SDK
Juxtaboard Engine
Rules & automations
Workflow / state models
Connected tables
Agents & inbox
Connectors & webhooks
Audit & telemetry
Back Office for your team: views · dashboards · documents
Runs on
Juxtaboard Cloud
or
Your servers (Docker)
Your frontend holds no state, so it can live on any CDN. Rules, data and operations live in one Engine, shared by your customers' app and your team's Back Office.
The day the rules change
One rule. One place. Every screen follows.
The change: “Premium customers now pay a 20% deposit. Orders over [AMOUNT] need manager approval.”
AI app builder
Rule copied into code
Prompt the change
Agent edits the checkout code
Agent edits the server function
Easy to missThe admin screen, too
Easy to missNotifications, too
Retest everything that was regenerated
Juxtaboard
Rule lives in the Engine
Tell Claude the change
Deposit rule and approval status change once, in the Engine
Your app reads the new rule through the SDK
Back Office already shows the approval queue
Update any screen that shows something new, then test
Rules in code are copied into every screen that needs them. Rules in the Engine are defined once and enforced for your app, your staff, agents and integrations alike.