Two weeks ago, I attended a great Smashing Magazine workshop on Lovable (hosted by the wonderful Christine Vallaure). I’m a huge fan of her Moonlearning.io courses, so I dove in with an open mind—she actually has a full course available on Lovable AI now!
The Project: I wanted to build a "Multi-Cat Feeding Manager."
The Scope: Custom feeding plans for up to 10 cats.
The Logic: Calculates wet/dry splits based on age, weight, and dietary restrictions.
The Output: A printable schedule for the refrigerator (because digital apps are great, but paper is persistent!).
The Experience (Lovable)
It started strong. The "Text-to-App" speed is undeniable. It handled the database setup and basic UI instantly. But then... I hit the wall.
The Credit Crunch: Because Lovable regenerates the full context on every iteration, I burned through my free credits before the app was finished.
The Design Ceiling: As Christine noted, you can't get it to look exactly how you envision. I couldn't connect it to Figma via MCP and say "Build this specific UI." You have to accept the tool's interpretation, which is tough for a designer who cares about precision.
The Pivot (Google Antigravity)
I recently switched from Cursor to Google Antigravity (Project IDX), which is included in my Gemini Advanced subscription. I realized: Why would I pay for metered credits to have an AI guess my architecture, when my Google AI subscription already includes an Agent that lets me build it without limits?
(I am trying not to reach financial ruin with all the AI candy I want to try!! 🍬)
My Takeaway: Tools like Lovable are incredible for Speed and Non-Developers. They abstract away the "plumbing" (Databases, Auth, Git).
But for those of us who enjoy the engineering side—especially now that AI has made it so accessible!—and who want to control the specialized logic and the exact pixel-perfect look of a 10-cat feeding schedule, an Agentic IDE (like Antigravity or Cursor) offers better value.
I’m rebuilding the Cat App in Antigravity now. It might take me an extra hour to set up the database, but I’ll own every line of code (and every pixel) when I’m done.
Question: Where is your line between "No-Code AI" (Lovable/Bolt) and "Agentic Coding" (Cursor/Antigravity)? Do you pay for speed, or do you build for control?
#UXEngineering #Lovable #GoogleGemini #Antigravity #WebDev #SmashingConf #AI