A private, self-owned alternative to Replit and Lovable

Short answer: Replit and Lovable are excellent for building and launching public products. If instead you want a small app that’s private to your team, running on a server you own, with your own AI, that’s a different tool — and it’s Croft.

The AI app builders are aimed at founders shipping something to the world: public URLs, strangers signing up, usage-metered AI. Plenty of great products start there. But a lot of what people build with AI isn’t a product at all — it’s an internal tool, a client portal, a financial model — meant for a handful of people who all know each other. For that, “public by default” and “pay per token” are the wrong defaults.

What “private and self-owned” means

• Private by default. Every app sits behind enterprise single sign-on; you invite people by name. No public sign-ups.
• A server that’s yours. Your apps run on your own private machine, not a shared pool — and you can export everything and run it anywhere Docker does.
• Bring your own AI. Use the Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok account you already have. No resold tokens, no per-message credits.
• Flat pricing, no meter. You’re charged for the ground and the caretaking, not for prompting.

Same “describe it and it’s built” magic — different destination. See the full breakdowns: Croft vs Replit · Croft vs Lovable.

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