Bolt.new review

Bolt, sold at bolt.new, is an AI builder from StackBlitz, the company behind the WebContainers technology that runs Node.js in the browser ¹⁷. It builds websites, full-stack web apps and, through Expo, iOS and Android apps from a prompt ^13,17. Bolt Cloud adds hosting, databases with sign-in and storage, server functions and domains, running on platforms such as Netlify and Supabase ⁵.

Forbes lists StackBlitz in San Francisco with about $105 million in total funding and a $700 million valuation after a Series B from investors including Emergence Capital and GV ²⁶. Bolt launched in October 2024 ²⁷. In September 2026 Bolt added Forge, an agent on open-source models, and a $9 Lite plan built around it ⁴.

You pick the Standard agent for everyday work or Max for large, complex projects, and Bolt chooses the models behind each ¹⁶. Projects run in the browser, and you can edit any file in Code view or lock files Bolt should not touch ^12,17. Bolt saves versions you can preview and restore, though a restore leaves the database as it is ¹¹. With GitHub connected, Bolt commits each working change and pulls outside edits every 30 seconds; branches are created in Bolt but merged in GitHub ¹⁰.

Publishing puts the app on a bolt.host address, or a custom domain on paid plans, and paid users can publish privately for invited viewers ⁷. Before launch, a security audit from the Publish menu checks who can see and change data, sign-in, input handling and leaked keys, and fixes most issues without using tokens ⁸. Mobile apps use Expo: you test on a phone with Expo Go, then download the code and run Expo's EAS tools to submit to TestFlight, the App Store or Google Play ¹³. Bolt's help pages say some runtime errors, such as a blank preview, are ones it cannot detect on its own, so you paste the console output into the chat ²².

Pro starts at $25 a month for 10M tokens with no daily cap; Bolt's own billing examples show $50 for 26M tokens and $100 for 55M ^1,2. Annual plans cost $216 a year for 10M tokens a month or $540 for 26M ². Unused paid tokens roll over for one extra month while you stay subscribed ³. Teams costs $30 per member a month, with tokens tied to each member ¹. Most tokens go on syncing your project's files to the AI, so larger projects cost more per message ³. Token reloads are limited to the top monthly Pro tier and annual plans, at prices shown only in the app, and Pro hosting beyond 30 GB and 1M requests is pay-as-you-go up to a cap you set ^3,6. One builder with a custom domain pays $25 a month ¹. Subscriptions are non-refundable ².

Bolt says it is SOC 2 Type II compliant and offers the report through sales ^17,24. It also cites GDPR and CCPA compliance, AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.2 or higher in transit and yearly third-party penetration tests ²⁴. A Model training setting, on by default except in the EU, UK and Switzerland, lets Bolt train on projects and chats created from October 7, 2026; you can turn it off ²⁰. Team and Enterprise customers under an MSA or DPA are excluded from training ²⁴. Forge works differently: prompts, code and edit histories are de-identified and shared with partners to train open-source models ⁴. Enterprise adds SAML single sign-on and a deployment inside your own AWS or Azure tenant ²⁵.

Bolt.new holds 4.3 from 97 G2 reviews, where users praise speed but flag token costs and trouble with complex projects ²⁸, and 4.4 from 47 Product Hunt reviews ³⁰. Trustpilot tells a different story: 1.6 from 204 reviews, mostly one star, citing burned tokens, charges after cancelling and slow support ²⁹. Bolt shows logos of companies such as Google, Microsoft and Salesforce ²³ and publishes one detailed story, from Digital Virgo, which says it cut time to launch from 12 months to 3.5 ²⁵.