Bubble.io vs Lovable: which is safer for a real app in 2026?

Short answer: Lovable is the faster way to get a working prototype: describe the app, and it writes React code on a Supabase database in minutes. Bubble.io is the safer choice once real users, payments or personal data are involved, because its security lives in the platform and in privacy rules you can read and check without reading code. Lovable has had two public data-exposure incidents (CVE-2025-48757 in 2025 and an API flaw in 2026). Use Lovable to validate the idea; build the product people will trust with their data on Bubble.io.

We build on Bubble.io for a living, so you'd expect us to say Bubble wins. On speed to a first demo, it doesn't: Lovable is genuinely impressive. This comparison is about the question that matters once you have users: who makes sure their data stays private, and can you check it?

Bubble.io vs Lovable at a glance

How each one actually builds your app

Lovable is a prompt-to-code builder. You describe a screen or a feature, the AI writes front-end code (React, TypeScript, Tailwind) and connects it to a Supabase Postgres database, either your own or through Lovable Cloud. Every change is another prompt, and every prompt spends credits. The result is a real codebase: you can sync it to GitHub and hand it to a developer.

Bubble.io is a visual development platform. Pages, database, workflows and permissions are built in an editor, and Bubble's AI Agent (Agent 2 since October 2026) can build and edit them for you (we covered Agent 2 and Bubble MCP here). The AI works inside the same visual app a human can open, read and fix. There is no code to inherit, but there is also no code to export.

That one difference, generated code vs a visual app on a managed platform, decides almost everything else in this comparison, starting with security.

Security: the difference that matters most

In both tools, the biggest risk is the same: a database that answers questions it shouldn't. A logged-out visitor asks for every user's email, and the app hands it over. Whether that happens depends on access rules. What differs is who writes those rules, where they live and whether a non-developer can check them.

What happened with Lovable

2025 — CVE-2025-48757. In March 2025 security researcher Matt Palmer found that apps built with Lovable often shipped with missing or insufficient row-level security (RLS) policies on their Supabase database. His follow-up scan found 303 vulnerable endpoints across 170 Lovable projects, exposing names, emails, phone numbers, payment status, home addresses and API keys to anyone who knew where to look. The issue was assigned CVE-2025-48757 with a critical severity score. Lovable responded with a security scanner in Lovable 2.0, which checks that RLS policies exist but cannot prove they actually block the wrong people (timeline and details).

2026 — the API flaw. On April 20, 2026 researchers disclosed a broken object-level authorization flaw in Lovable's own API. For 48 days after it was first reported, a free account could read other users' public projects, including source code, AI chat history and the database credentials sitting in that code, for projects created before November 2025. Lovable fixed it within hours of the public report and made public projects private, after first describing the exposure as intended behaviour (The Next Web's report).

And Bubble.io? Not automatically safe either

To be fair: a Bubble.io app with no privacy rules leaks too. Without privacy rules, any record your pages can search for can also be pulled by anyone who opens the browser's developer tools, and a Data API switched on without privacy rules exposes the whole table. In April 2025 researchers claimed a Bubble platform vulnerability; Bubble disputed it and stated that the technique "does not allow unauthorized access to user data in any Bubble-created application that has properly configured privacy rules" (Bubble's response). Read that sentence carefully: on Bubble, privacy rules are your responsibility as well.

The real difference: security you can see and check

Both platforms put data access in the builder's hands. The difference is what it takes to verify it:

• Where the rules live. In Bubble, every data type has a Privacy tab with rules in plain conditions ("This User is Current User's company"). In Lovable, the rules are SQL policies inside Supabase, next to tables most founders never open.
• Who can review them. A non-technical founder can read Bubble privacy rules in ten minutes. Reviewing RLS policies takes someone who reads SQL and understands Postgres roles.
• What the platform handles. Bubble runs hosting, authentication, password hashing, encryption (TLS in transit, AES-256 at rest), DDoS protection, backups and an annual OWASP pen test, under a SOC 2 Type II report (bubble.io/security). In a Lovable app, part of that stack is code the AI wrote for your project.
• What changes when you change the app. Every Lovable prompt can rewrite code, including code that touches access. In Bubble, a privacy rule stays exactly as set until someone edits it, and Bubble's security dashboard flags data types without rules.
• Where secrets live. Bubble keeps API keys in the API Connector, server-side and marked private. In generated code, keys end up wherever the AI put them, sometimes in the front end.

A 10-minute security check for either app

Whichever tool you use, run these before you invite real users:

• Log out and look. Open the app in a private window and try every page and URL. Nothing private should load.
• Try another user's ID. Log in as user A and change an ID in the URL to user B's record. You should get nothing.
• Bubble: open Data → Privacy. Every data type with personal or business data needs at least one rule. Check that the Data API is off for types that don't need it, and run Bubble's security dashboard.
• Lovable: open the Supabase dashboard and confirm RLS is enabled on every table, then read each policy (or have a developer read it). Run Lovable's security scan, but don't treat a pass as proof.
• Search for secrets. Stripe, OpenAI or service keys must never be in front-end code. Rotate any key that ever was.

If you'd rather have someone else do this, our free app review covers privacy rules and data exposure, with a written estimate within two business days.

Pricing: credits vs workload units

Lovable has a free plan with 5 credits a day (up to 30 a month). Pro costs about $25/month for roughly 100 monthly credits plus daily credits; Business is about $50/month and adds SSO and a security center (lovable.dev/pricing). Every edit spends credits, and Lovable Cloud hosting for bigger apps draws on the same balance. A tricky bug that takes 20 prompts to fix costs 20 times.

Bubble.io charges for the platform: Starter is $32/month (rising to $39 on monthly billing from October 20, 2026), Growth $134/month, with a workload-unit allowance for server activity and AI credits for the Agent. The full breakdown is in our Bubble.io pricing guide.

For a prototype, Lovable is cheaper. For an app in production, the subscription is the small part of the bill. The real cost is the person who maintains it: a React and Supabase developer for a Lovable app, a Bubble developer for a Bubble app. Our cost calculator estimates the Bubble side.

Code ownership and lock-in: where Lovable wins

Lovable's strongest argument is ownership. You get a standard React codebase on GitHub; if Lovable disappears or raises prices, a developer can take the code and keep going. Bubble.io doesn't export code. If you leave Bubble, you rebuild.

In practice, that ownership is only worth something if someone can maintain the code. An AI-generated codebase that nobody on the team understands is owned on paper, not in practice. And Bubble's lock-in is the trade-off for the security model above: the platform can patch, encrypt and monitor your app because it runs all of it.

When to choose each

For the wider picture, including Replit, Bolt and Base44, see our comparison of Bubble.io vs Lovable, Replit and Bolt.

Already built your app on Lovable?

You don't have to throw it away. First, run the checklist above today, especially if your project was created before November 2025 or was ever public: rotate any keys that were in the code. Then decide based on where the app is going:

• Still validating? Keep it on Lovable, fix the access rules and don't store sensitive data yet.
• Getting real users and payments? That's the point where rebuilding on Bubble.io usually pays off. Your Lovable app becomes the perfect spec: screens, flows and data model already exist. We wrote a step-by-step guide to migrating from Lovable to Bubble.io.

Our verdict

Lovable is the best tool we know for turning an idea into something you can click on. Bubble.io is what we'd put real users on. The deciding question isn't which tool is more modern; it's whether anyone on your team can verify that your users' data is private. With Bubble, the answer is yes even without a developer: open the Privacy tab and read the rules. With Lovable, the answer is only yes if someone reads the code, every time the AI changes it.

If you're weighing the move, tell us about your app. We'll tell you honestly whether it's worth rebuilding and what it would cost.

Written by Sergiu Coban

Co-founder and CEO of Webziper. Since 2019 he has led 150+ Bubble.io projects for founders worldwide, from scoping and estimates to launch and support. LinkedIn →