"So which one is best for building apps — Antigravity, Cursor, or Bolt?" I've been asked this several times by fellow indie developers recently. After using all three on real projects, my honest answer is that the more useful question is not "which is best" but "which one fits where in my workflow."
What I want to share here are the practical differences I noticed while building iOS, Android, and web projects side by side. Rather than hand you another spec table, I would rather leave you with something usable — a feel for which tool earns its place in which situation.
These three tools belong to different categories
The first thing worth pointing out is that Antigravity, Cursor, and Bolt aren't really competing in exactly the same lane. Even though they all let you "build apps with AI," their design philosophies are quite different.
- Antigravity: Google's AI-first IDE, centered around Gemini and Gemma 4, with an agent-driven approach to local development.
- Cursor: A VS Code fork with deep AI integration. Lets you switch between LLMs and treats AI as an extension of the editor experience.
- Bolt: A WebContainer-based full-stack environment that runs in the browser. Optimized for "show me a working app right now" rather than long-form coding.
So Antigravity and Cursor are best thought of as serious local IDEs, while Bolt is closer to an instant prototyping playground. Keeping this framing in mind makes the rest of the comparison much easier.
How I actually split the work between them
To cut to the chase, here's how I personally use each one:
- Validation phase (testing if an idea is worth building): I use Bolt to get a working prototype within 30 minutes.
- Serious build phase: I move the project into Antigravity or Cursor and grow it as a real codebase.
- Maintaining and extending existing apps: I lean on Antigravity, mostly because Gemini's reasoning fits the way I write.
This works because Bolt has a clean export flow into a local Antigravity or Cursor setup. The reverse path — moving from a serious codebase back into Bolt — almost never makes sense. When you treat the three as stages in a pipeline rather than rivals, they stop fighting for the same job.
Comparing them from an app-building lens
Let me walk through where each tool actually shines or falls short when the goal is to ship a working app.
1. Time to first working prototype
For getting from zero to "this thing runs," Bolt is dramatically the fastest. You drop in a prompt and it spins up a Next.js or Vite skeleton inside the browser, ready to demo. In my experience, a SaaS-style scaffold with a landing page lands in 5 to 10 minutes.
Cursor is also fast at scaffolding, but you still wait for the local npm install step. Antigravity feels slightly slower at the very first iteration, since its agent likes to set up multiple files coherently — but the result is more production-shaped from the start.
2. Stability inside larger codebases
Once your project grows, the ranking flips. Bolt's WebContainer foundation starts straining when dependencies pile up; in my tests, things got noticeably wobbly past around 50 packages.
Antigravity, by contrast, handles 200+ file projects comfortably because the agent operates directly on your local filesystem. Cursor performs at a similar level, but for genuinely large repositories I'd give Antigravity the edge in keeping context across files. I dug into this in more detail in Antigravity vs Cursor 2026 Comparison if you'd like to go deeper.
3. Native and desktop app support
This is where the gap is largest. Because Bolt lives in the browser, it's not really suited to native iOS, native Android, or Electron development. React Native and Expo are technically supported, but the simulator integration is weak in my experience.
Antigravity and Cursor both run as local IDEs, so they pair naturally with Xcode, Android Studio, and Unity. I personally write SwiftUI in Antigravity and only switch to Xcode for builds — that flow simply isn't possible in Bolt today.
4. Pricing and long-term cost
Pricing also reflects each tool's character. Bolt uses token-based pricing with a free tier and paid plans on top. Cursor's $20/month Pro plan covers most use cases comfortably. Antigravity is bundled into Google AI Pro and Ultra, which makes it the cheapest in practice if you already pay for Gemini or Google One storage.
In my own setup I'm on annual Google AI Pro, so Antigravity ends up the most cost-effective option. If you live deep inside the Google ecosystem, the math probably tilts the same way for you.
To put a number on it: my monthly tooling spend used to look like Cursor Pro at $20 plus a separate AI subscription. Switching that to Antigravity bundled inside Google AI Pro freed up roughly $20 a month for the same level of agent quality, and I keep Cursor only as a secondary editor for repositories where its keymap muscle memory is faster. Bolt, in turn, sits on a free tier for me unless I'm prototyping aggressively in a given week.
One thing worth flagging: token-based pricing in Bolt rewards short, focused prompts and punishes "regenerate the whole file" habits. If you find yourself burning credits quickly, that's usually a signal to break the work into smaller commits rather than upgrading the plan.
Concrete example: building the same TODO app
To make this less abstract, here's how the same simple TODO app actually plays out across the three tools — based on what I've done myself.
# With Bolt: just describe what you want in the browser
# "Build a TODO app with Next.js 15 + Tailwind + Supabase"
# → A live preview boots in minutes; Supabase connection is auto-prompted.
# With Cursor: start from a local template
npx create-next-app@latest todo-app --typescript --tailwind --app
cd todo-app
# Use Cmd+K: "Add Supabase persistence"
# Expected output: lib/supabase.ts, components/TodoList.tsx, etc.
# With Antigravity: hand the whole thing to the agent
# "Build a TODO app with Next.js 15 and Supabase.
# Use Magic Link auth and shadcn/ui for the UI."
# → The agent generates multiple files, installs deps, wires up types end-to-end.All three reach a "working app." The difference shows up in what comes next. You can absolutely push Bolt's output to GitHub and keep building, but I almost always end up redoing the dependency and CI/CD setup locally afterwards. Antigravity and Cursor start in a local-first shape, which makes them easier to absorb into a serious development flow.
So which one should you pick?
Here's the recommendation I'd give a friend, depending on what they're trying to do.
- You're an indie developer wanting to validate ideas: Start in Bolt to move fast, then graduate to Antigravity or Cursor when the idea earns more time.
- You're shipping iOS / Android native apps: Pick Antigravity or Cursor. If you already have Google AI Pro, Antigravity is effectively the cheapest serious option.
- You're heavily invested in VS Code extensions: Cursor will feel the most natural to migrate into.
- You want the best Gemini-driven code generation today: Antigravity is, in my view, the strongest choice right now.
You don't need to commit to just one. After using all three, my honest take is that they specialize in different stages of the same workflow, so combining them is usually more efficient than picking a single winner.
For a wider survey of AI IDEs, I'd point you to AI IDE Comparison Guide 2026. And if you want to dig deeper into Bolt-style app builders specifically, AI App Builder 2026 Comparison Guide covers that lane in more detail.
Quick decision checklist
If you'd like a one-screen way to decide, run through these questions in order:
- Do you need a working preview within the next hour, even if rough? → Start in Bolt.
- Are you building an iOS, Android, or desktop app? → Skip Bolt; pick Antigravity or Cursor.
- Are you already paying for Google AI Pro or Ultra? → Antigravity has the best cost-to-quality ratio for you.
- Do you rely on a long list of VS Code extensions and keybindings? → Cursor will hurt the least to switch into.
- Are you working on a multi-month codebase with 100+ files? → Antigravity tends to keep context the longest in my experience.
These aren't strict rules, but they've saved me a lot of second-guessing. The honest truth is that none of these tools is "wrong" for app building; they're optimized for different moments in the journey from idea to App Store.
A small step you can take today
Picking the perfect tool can eat an entire day if you let it. The thing I'd actually recommend is to take a small idea you already have lying around — a TODO list, a notes app, a hobby budgeting tool — and spend just 30 minutes inside Bolt with it. If it feels promising, move it into Antigravity or Cursor. The decision becomes far easier and far faster once you've felt the difference, instead of arguing about it on paper.