There are plenty of Antigravity vs. Cursor vs. Bolt comparisons online. Almost none of them answer the question I actually care about as a solo app developer: how much am I really paying each month, and how many apps am I shipping per dollar spent?
I've used all four tools — Antigravity, Cursor, Bolt, and Lovable — on real projects over the past six months. This is an attempt to share what I've learned, not what the marketing pages say.
The Comparison Setup
Four tools evaluated: Google Antigravity, Cursor Pro, Bolt (bolt.new), and Lovable (formerly GPT Engineer).
Five dimensions: actual monthly cost (not the listed price), code quality for App Store submission, time to implement a standard feature, learning curve, and project types each tool handles well.
What You're Actually Paying
The listed price and the month-end invoice are often different things.
Antigravity Pro starts at $20/month. Heavy development sessions — especially long agent runs on larger codebases — can push you into additional credit purchases. In my experience, an active month runs $30–40. You know what you're getting, and it's predictable after the first few weeks.
Cursor Pro is $20/month, and that's genuinely the ceiling. Unlimited usage with no additional charges. If you're someone who runs long coding sessions without predictable stopping points, the flat rate is genuinely valuable for peace of mind.
Bolt is usage-based and can swing significantly. A focused prototyping sprint costs $10–15. A large refactor session can push to $40–50 unexpectedly. Plan accordingly.
Lovable is similarly usage-based, tending toward $15–30 for UI-focused work, but rising with backend complexity.
For roughly $30–40/month of active development, Antigravity and Cursor deliver the most output per dollar in my experience.
Code Quality — The App Store Lens
As an indie developer, code quality means: does it pass review, does it crash, does it drain battery? Here's how each tool performs on those measures.
Antigravity generates iOS code that handles background tasks and memory management thoughtfully. It actively uses modern SwiftUI APIs and tends to include the privacy usage descriptions that App Store review requires. I noticed fewer review rejections after switching to Antigravity for the core implementation layer — it seems to internalize Apple's guidelines better than the alternatives.
Cursor produces well-structured code that scales. Large codebases stay consistent because Cursor is good at understanding and respecting existing patterns. The gap: iOS-specific edge cases (Safe Area handling, iPad multi-window, Widgets) need explicit prompting. Tell it, and it handles it correctly. Don't tell it, and you'll miss things.
Bolt is fast. The generated code works. But "works" and "production-ready" aren't the same thing. In my experience, Bolt output needs a cleanup pass before App Store submission — unoptimized network calls, occasional force-unwraps in Swift, sometimes outdated API usage. Best used for prototypes where you're validating an idea, not the final implementation.
Lovable excels at design. The UI components it generates are often the most polished of any tool. The weakness is native API integration — anything beyond standard web components requires significant manual work. Powerful for web products and landing pages; limited for native iOS/Android.
Implementation Speed: A Real Test
I ran the same task across all four tools: add user authentication with email and Apple Sign In to an existing iOS app.
Antigravity — about 90 minutes. The agent handled Firebase Authentication setup and Swift implementation nearly autonomously. One manual fix was needed: the Keychain token storage pattern it generated was from an older convention. That took 10 minutes to correct.
Cursor — about 2 hours. Code quality was high and the step-by-step explanations were helpful. A few configuration file adjustments needed manual attention. Best tool for learning while implementing.
Bolt — 45 minutes of generation, plus 2 hours of adaptation. Bolt got to a working prototype fast, but it assumed a web architecture. Adapting that to native iOS added time that erased the speed advantage.
Lovable — about 1 hour, with caveats. The UI looked great immediately. The Apple Sign In implementation was delegated to a third-party service recommendation rather than native implementation. Had to rewrite that part from scratch.
A Framework for Choosing
Based on six months of real use, here's how I'd direct someone choosing a tool:
Native iOS or Android app (long-term project): Antigravity. The native API knowledge, App Store awareness, and context retention across long sessions make it the most reliable choice for shipping apps.
Web app or full-stack service (React/Next.js): Cursor. TypeScript support, consistent code style, and team-friendly patterns make it the professional choice for web.
Prototype or demo (need something working within 72 hours): Bolt. The speed is real. Just plan for a cleanup pass before production.
Design-heavy web product or landing page: Lovable. Nothing else generates UI this polished this quickly.
Using Multiple Tools Is the Smartest Strategy
After six months, my workflow uses all four tools, each for what it's best at. Initial concept validation with Bolt, core implementation with Antigravity or Cursor depending on the target platform, design polish reviews with Lovable.
None of these tools are static — they're all meaningfully different from six months ago. Holding strong opinions about which is "best" is less useful than staying flexible and matching the tool to the project. That's where the efficiency gain actually lives.
One Cost-Saving Tip That Works Across All Tools
The single most effective way to reduce monthly spend is context management: create a new session for each discrete feature rather than extending a single conversation indefinitely. Token consumption drops significantly, and the quality of responses often improves because the context is focused.
Every tool charges based on what you send. Sending everything every time is the most common way to overspend.