The 6 best AI app builders in 2025

Even using no-code, building a new app can take a big chunk of your time. Setting up data sources requires smart planning and foresight. Building an intuitive user interface takes multiple tries until you find the perfect layout. And tying it all together with bug-free app logic demands attention to detail and many rounds of testing.

AI helps in two ways here. The first is by turning your prompt into a first-draft app, speeding up setup. The other is by building solutions with code and placing them in the right place. It can't do 100% for you yet—but it's getting really, really close.

Every time I update this list of the best AI app builders, I find new options that keep pushing the boundaries of what AI can do in this category. It's evolving at an exciting rate. Here are the best AI app builders available out of the 30+ I tested.

The 6 best AI-powered app builders

• Softr for ease of use and speed

• Microsoft Power Apps for creating and editing with AI

• Quickbase for enterprise-grade apps

• Airtable Cobuilder for data views

• Create for building an app with a single prompt

• Databutton for building with an AI agent

What makes the best generative AI app builder?

This list focuses on platforms that help you create apps using natural language prompts—vibe coding at its best. But the AI app builders you'll discover here come in two flavors. The first are established app-building platforms that added AI to the development process. Their main advantage is that they already have a suite of editing tools to fine-tune the result of the prompt. The others are platforms that have popped up recently, focusing on building only with AI prompts. The way to control them is using detail-oriented English with a programming mindset, which can take a few tries until you get comfortable with it.

Here's what I paid attention to during my search. These AI app builders:

• Interpret prompts accurately. This is the test to see if you're dealing with real AI or a well-designed template remixer (super useful, but not true AI).

• Automatically build basic functionality. This means these AI app builders go further than just assembling the user interface. They can also set up basic functionality such as creating or updating records.

• Are fully no-code. This means that you don't have to know HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or any other complex programming framework to customize the app built by the AI.

• Offer good customization tools. I looked out for the possibility of adding more prompts or using no-code controls to tune the app.

• Have easy publishing methods. These apps don't require you to handle any server configuration or other complicated controls before sharing it with the world.

I had three fun weeks of testing. I signed up for each of these apps, noted down a few app ideas (and generated others with ChatGPT), and pasted them into the prompt windows. I made changes to the prompts to check how sensitive the AI engine was and then continued editing to gauge each platform's flexibility. Here are the results.

The best AI app builders at a glance

Best AI app builder for ease of use and speed

Softr

Softr pros:

• Easy data storage in Airtable or Google Sheets

• Builds user-friendly interfaces

Softr cons:

• Limited advanced logic

Softr already holds the first position on Zapier's best no-code app builders list. I'm still amazed at how easy it is to use without completely sacrificing functionality, removing "more power means more difficulty" from the equation.

It's the fastest platform to get you from the prompt window to an app that's close to ready to use. When you visit the Softr AI page, you can select a category and enter what you'd like your app to do. After you send in your prompt, it captures the gist of what you want: it assigns a name to your app, and then you can choose a starting color and design look before it starts generating.

It may take a few moments to complete your app. After the engine finishes setting up, you land on the Softr editor with everything ready to go: an app with a dashboard, login pages, list pages to display data, and input forms. To top it off, there may be a couple of user roles available, depending on the type of platform you asked to generate.

You can click on any of the components on each page to configure how they look and behave at a basic level, as well as connecting a Google Sheet or Airtable base to store data. There's no way to edit your app using AI, but growing your app is easy. Softr has a collection of user interface components that help you work with your data and set up new actions.

This burst of speed from idea to first app draft is Softr's greatest advantage. And if you need to configure advanced actions, get into workflow automation, or sync data across your apps, Softr integrates with Zapier to make that happen. Here are some pre-made workflows to get you started.

Softr price: Free plan available; Basic plan starts at $59/month

Best AI app builder for creating and editing with AI

Microsoft Power Apps

Microsoft Power Apps pros:

• Very flexible

• Accessible advanced logic for non-technical people

Microsoft Power Apps cons:

• Complicated first-time setup

Microsoft is rolling out Copilot features across its entire product lineup, and Power Apps is no exception. Featured in Zapier's list of the best internal tool builders, it's already a powerful app builder, offering deep functionality without requiring coding knowledge. It uses a function-based language for app logic, close to the one available in Excel.

In the Power Apps dashboard, you can now choose to start a new app from a prompt. I suggest you start with a small description of what you're looking for. Here's why: in the first step after submitting the prompt, you'll see the generated database schema. You can use a chat window on the right to add, remove, or change the fields with prompts. After you save this, Power Apps will put together the main page to display and interact with this database. Starting small is better because you can only generate the starting point, not the entire app.

Going through these first steps is already pretty cool, especially if you struggle with database schemas like I sometimes do. But what came next surprised me: the Copilot chat window remains open on the app editor, and you can ask to add new elements to the app in plain English. I asked to add a couple of buttons and a new form. I was impressed with the accuracy of what the AI engine implemented, even if there were a few comical mishaps from time to time—apparently, AI doesn't know where the "bottom of the screen" is.

You can write what you want and get it on your screen a few seconds later—just position the elements where you want them. New pages? Buttons? New lists? Ask, and you shall receive.

Microsoft Power Apps pricing: Premium plan goes for $20/user/month. Full access to all features may require subscribing or configuring other Microsoft services, such as Dynamics 365 or Azure Cloud.

Best AI app builder for enterprise-grade apps

Quickbase

Quickbase pros:

• Can power all your business processes

• Data science and workflow optimization available

Quickbase cons:

• Occasional slow performance

Quickbase's AI Smart Builder creates internal tools adapted to your prompt—and it's pretty accurate. Still in beta, it accepts a more detailed prompt than other options. You'll start by entering your industry, describing what you want your app to achieve, and listing things you want to track, report on, or manage.

Having trouble coming up with the perfect prompt? You can click the link on the generation pop-up to access instructions and examples. Once you lock in on the prompt and click create, go grab a cup of coffee: Quickbase can take up to 10 minutes to build the tables and user interface.

The result raised my eyebrows. I asked for a content tracking app and got more than I hoped for:

• A home page with graphs and tables to track my team's workload

• Four views to track every project, content piece, team member, and asset

• Buttons to open forms to add more data

All of these matched exactly what I asked for. With this starting point in place, you can add new views or pull in data from external sources to display side-by-side.

Quickbase can become the central place for all your business information and operations, which is why it's the best for building enterprise-grade apps. With it, you can manage projects and resources, set up pipelines to automate your work apps and internal workflows, and make sure you always stay compliant with industry regulations. On top of all this, you can connect Quickbase to Zapier for extra automation and connection opportunities. Here are some examples.

Quickbase price: $35/user/month for a minimum of 20 users

Best AI app builder for data views

Airtable Cobuilder

Airtable Cobuilder pros:

• Fast results

• Fully integrates with your Airtable bases

Airtable Cobuilder cons:

• Interface is made of Airtable's stock components and can't be customized beyond that

Airtable is a popular data management solution that proved that databases don't have to be scary. And now it's investing heavily in its app-building features—AI included. The key difference here is how it automatically configures a good range of data visualization screens out of the box, simplifying the process of designing an internal tool.

There are a few options to start with. You can pick a pre-made prompt, write your own, or import your spreadsheets and documents. Whichever you choose, Airtable's AI engine will do two major things:

• It understands what you're looking for, customizing the writing on the app to match the use case you're targeting.

• It creates a range of data views that make sense considering the data types you're working with.

Instead of coding the user interface from scratch like others on this list, it instead leverages the existing Airtable views to display this data in the most helpful way: lists, Lanban boards, galleries, and any other existing views on the platform. This cuts both ways: no user interface freedom, but also no weird bugs, since most of the create-read-update-delete actions are sorted out, not created on the fly.

A bit like in Softr, Cobuilder in Airtable is there for the initial speed boost and inspiration on which data views to use. From thereon in, you can edit the app in a simple but robust editor. Configure views, enable or disable actions users can take, and add or remove pages as needed. All the data lives in Airtable bases that you can feed with your data either with manual input or imports. Or, better yet, by automating Airtable with Zapier. Learn more about how to automate Airtable, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Airtable Cobuilder price: Included with Airtable; free plan includes unlimited bases of 1,000 records each and up to 5 editors. Team plan from $20/user/month raises the bar to 50,000 records per base.

Best AI app builder for creating with a single prompt

Create

Create pros:

• Very easy to use

• Start from text or a screenshot

Create cons:

• Backend is still a bit hard to implement

Create started as an app-from-a-master-prompt platform. You'd write and edit your app in English, and the AI would do its best to render it as a usable product. Since then, it got a massive overhaul, hitting an almost perfect balance between speed, power, and ease of use.

Generating a new app is similar to other options on the list. First, write what you'd like to create, and watch it come to life on the right side. Then, keep prompting on the left-side chat, and wait for the AI engine to turn your instructions into code. The result is a base app with a modern look ready to edit.

Frontend edits are very accurate. To change a specific element, click the Select button, click the canvas, and write a prompt to make changes. This is also the beginning of how you can create reusable components, saving time and increasing visual consistency over time.

It's a bit hard to build and customize backend logic. Still, you can browse the documentation on using the database feature or setting up API calls: you'll have to use some structured prompts to connect all the systems together. Another feature I like is that you can create functions in a separate interface—find them in the top-left menu or by pressing Alt + F. This way, you can set up custom logic first and then use it in your app, a less confusing and more precise way of building.

Create's extreme makeover was the most surprising and exciting change in this lineup, raising green flags about future possibilities—not only for this product, but for AI app-building as a category. More than a good AI engine, it's putting together a powerful framework to reduce complexity and lower the difficulty bar for non-technical people.

Create price: Free plan available with limited messages; Pro plan at $19/month offers unlimited messages, 3 private projects, and custom domains.

Best AI app builder for building with an agent

Databutton

Databutton pros:

• Transparent AI thought process gives more control

• Create multiple conversation threads for better organization

Databutton cons:

• Requires you to pick up some programming concepts along the way

Here's the problem with no-code software in general: the easier it is to use, the more it runs inside a black box. All the little dangerous controls are taken away so you can't break anything you can't fix, but that comes at a cost of development flexibility. Databutton strikes a good middle ground, acting as an open box where you can see and edit the AI-generated code.

Start with the first prompt and send it. Make it simple: Databutton will take time to build the starting point. The platform's interface updates frequently as the AI agent thinks, creates files, and writes code.

Once your app's first version is ready, it's time for edits using natural language prompts in the right-side chat window. The main difference is, where other platforms only generate the code and run it, Databutton's agent iterates. It thinks through the solution before coding:

1. It determines what code sections to write or change.

2. It checks for all required files.

3. It suggests an implementation plan (say yes to approve, and it will get to work).

I asked for a basic project management platform and got a great starting point. It took around 10 minutes to generate, but it looked clean and ready to edit. For errors or bugs, I used one of two strategies: ask the agent to debug, or hit the Restore button at the top right and roll back the app one prompt.

Despite the time investment, Databutton is a good AI agent platform for coding an app from scratch. You'll learn technical concepts while reading the implementation plans or integrating Firebase and other services. If you already know how to code, you can jump in at any time and tweak it yourself.

Databutton price: Starter plan at $20/month with 75 code generations included.

Generative AI app builders vs. building AI features into apps

All the apps above let you use generative AI to build an app. But if you're looking to build apps that have AI features—say, you want to build an app that summarizes text or turns it into audio—there are other options you can look at.

• You can build your own chatbots with Zapier's AI Chatbot tool. Start by telling it what to do, connect knowledge sources to ground it on your data, and share it with others. It's great for implementing robust internal tools, fast.

• OpenAI's GPTs offer similar possibilities. It's as if you can customize ChatGPT for unique cases, such as creative writing, handling negotiations, or anything else you can come up with.

• One step more complex, there's Glide. It's a no-code app builder that offers AI-powered interface components. When you add them to your app, you can generate text, extract text from images, or render audio into text.

• Finally, if you want to create a unique app with custom AI features, you can do it with any app builder out there that supports API connections. Choose your AI model provider—OpenAI, Anthropic, or a Hugging Face community model, among others—get the API keys, and plug them into the app editor. Then, set up the calls and how they're received on your app. This option is more advanced, but you'll be able to create any kind of AI-powered app with complete freedom.

Build faster with AI

Building apps with AI is still in the early days, but there are already surprisingly powerful tools out there. It won't get you across the finish line with just a prompt, but AI app builders give you a good speed boost to get you there. You can deploy apps faster or use the extra time to work on the more important features, which will improve the quality of your apps over time.

Related reading:

• How to choose an app builder

• Low-code vs. no-code: When to use each one

• How to build your own app—no coding skills required

• How to create new Softr users from Airtable

This article was originally published in February 2024. The most recent update was in February 2025.