Users find Lovable's current pricing ($50–$200/month) a significant barrier to entry for product managers who want to experiment, prototype, and develop AI/product intuition without a high initial cost. A free tier or a more affordable option would lower the barrier to adoption and encourage more users to build and ship.
Lovable is my favorite no-code tool for PMs. But there’s always been one blocker: You need a $50–$200/month to build something useful. So I kept searching for something I could confidently recommend to my readers. I finally found it. Dyad — a free, local, open-source app builder. I was surprised. It lets you prototype, learn, and ship locally for $0.00. For many cases, that’s all you need to start developing AI intuition and confidence. I genuinely loved using it. In one evening it built a Trello Clone PoC: - Boards, lists, and cards with drag & drop - AI generating lists and cards - AI suggesting background images - Using labels and marking cards as complete - Authentication and permissions All with a free stack ($0.00) and free Gemini API keys ($0.00). The free Dyad tier has everything you need to start. It syncs with GitHub, connects to Supabase, lets you publish your apps on Vercel/Netlify and switch LLMs anytime. No vendor lock-in. Dyad is a great alternative for anyone who wants to prototype, learn, or build simple products. From my free post you will learn: 1. Example: What Apps You Can Build With Dyad 2. How to Prototype and Build Apps for Free 3. Example: Adding a “Mark Boards as Favorite” Feature to My Trello Clone in Dyad 4. Dyad vs. Lovable: When to Use Which 5. Best Practices When Working With Dyad 6. Bonus: Dyad vs. Lovable vs. Base44 vs. Bubble vs. Bolt vs. Google Firebase Studio vs. Replit vs. Google Jules vs. OpenAI Codex vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Cursor 😀 🎁 No email, no paywall, no stupid comments: https://lnkd.in/dXYyyEBP Hope that helps! (This post isn’t sponsored.)