I Built a Budgeting App With Base44 — Here's How It Went

This article is sponsored by Base44.

In February 2025, veteran developer Andrej Karpathy published a post on X that, unbeknownst to him at the time, would forever change the web lexicon. That now-immortalized moment spread AI-assisted development beyond the developer bubble, and soon after, we would see everyone and their grandma sharing their vibe coding examples online.

Those early attempts were a mixed bag — simple apps and landing pages worked, but more complex projects failed. Experienced developers could sometimes salvage them with manual intervention, but nobody was vibe coding multi-layered apps with complex flows and backend logic end-to-end.

AI app builders like Base44 recognized this gap and started building the missing guardrails directly into their platforms. Today, Base44 has gotten so good that it no longer matters whether you understand app security, accessibility, backend logic, or any of the other variables that go into a successful software project. Describe a good idea well enough, and the platform takes care of the rest.

Or at least that's the marketing claim — that "anyone" can build an app. To test it under real-world conditions, I spent two days building a personal budgeting app from scratch. What follows is a breakdown of my experience building an app with Base44.

What I decided to build

My goal was to go beyond a simple single-currency spending tracker. I already knew Base44 could handle that, and it wouldn't make for a very interesting experiment.

I wanted to push the tool further, with a broad range of features and multi-step logic flows that branch based on user actions. Not long ago, these were the types of features that produced endless errors and debugging death loops.

I was curious if that was still the case, so I decided to include:

• An optional onboarding wizard for setting a default currency
• A decision tree currency selector that opens with the world's most widely used currencies and supports over a hundred more, organized by region
• A spending tracker organized by category, with the ability to toggle unused categories off to keep the UI clean
• Manual purchase entry
• Receipt scanning via photo, with editable amounts before saving
• A budget setter with optional warnings when approaching a category's monthly limit
• A financial account linker supporting 20 providers, including banks, credit cards, and financial apps, so users can track all their spending in one place
• Multiple 2FA options
• A basic profile page for a custom photo and display name

Getting started: The first prompt

In previous vibe coding experiments, I used Claude to brainstorm a Product Requirements Document (PRD), which I'd then use as my first prompt.

This time I took a different approach — not because that's bad advice (it isn't, and I recommend it if you're learning how to use an AI app builder), but because I wanted to see if I could get a similar result using Base44's "Plan Mode."

It turns out, I very much could. After I described my vision, Plan Mode drafted a detailed PRD. It didn't call it a PRD, but that's what it was in substance. I approved it, and Base44 got down to business.

It worked for about 10 minutes before deciding it needed a break, asking me to type "continue" to clock back in:

After another 10-minute work shift, the platform completed the initial build of my budgeting app, which, while not done, had a clean, modern interface and all the pages I asked for. Overall, I was impressed with the first result.

What Base44 got right from the start

One of the biggest wins I had came before Base44 even started building, and it was during the planning stage. The fact that it was able to take my feature descriptions and map them to detailed user flows is a testament to how far AI app builders have advanced:

The early app builder models didn’t do this, and because of that, we saw a lot of criticism of the tools in forums and on social media. The arguments ranged from "app builders are only good for producing good-looking demos" to the more forgiving "they’ll get you 80-85% of the way there, but the last 15-20% is impossible if you don’t know code."

As someone who used some of those early "beta version" app builders, I can personally attest to how much "debugging" you had to do — and I use the word loosely, because debugging implies there's something to debug. More often, the generated prototypes simply lacked the user flows needed to function at all. You had to prompt every last flow from scratch, in painstaking detail.

In hindsight, it didn't actually bother me at the time. Vibe coding was new, and that was just how it worked. It's only now, seeing how Base44 handles this automatically, that I realize how much of a difference it makes. Especially for a total beginner.

That shift is what's made "anyone can build an app" from a marketing slogan to a genuine statement. For validation, here's what Base44 actually produced from my first planning prompt:

• All the pages and sections I'd asked for were built with a polished UI. The only thing missing was a logo. A placeholder capital 'C' stood in until I replaced it.
• Working buttons, pop-ups, and interactive features, with a few minor aesthetic issues on mobile that I quickly fixed.
• Security problems automatically flagged by Base44's built-in scanner and resolved after running them by me for approval.

With most features in good shape, I shifted my focus to making the app more complex. That's when I started running into issues. Understandably so, but I was able to resolve them while learning a few useful things about how Base44 functions along the way.

The debugging phase

Fixing what's broken is usually the most time-consuming part of any vibe coding project. For my budgeting app, it was a hybrid phase. I was simultaneously adding features I'd intentionally omitted from my first prompt, while making minor tweaks where I found bugs.

Two things stood out:

1. Base44’s effectiveness at recognizing your intent when requesting a feature and offering workarounds when your specific request isn’t available or not working.
2. Base44 has its own quirks that come with a learning curve, but customer support is responsive and resolves issues quickly.

Alternative solutions and dependencies

One feature I initially added was a 2FA option using Sophos Authenticator. Base44 built a front-end shell for it, making it appear present in the app. However, when I tried to use it, there was no QR code or actual setup mechanism to make it work.

After some back-and-forth with no resolution, I decided to remove it. Base44 then suggested a viable alternative and told me the exact dependencies I'd need to install to make it work:

This is the kind of thing that's easy to undersell. Base44's ability to read what you want and identify the dependencies you need for it is precisely the knowledge a first-time app builder would lack. Base44 turns it into a non-factor.

Navigating Base44’s quirks

One speedbump I faced in the middle of vibe coding my way to greatness was the message queue system.

I encountered it when toying with the idea of connecting my budgeting app to an email service. After some quick thought, I decided to pass on it. I know that Base44 can handle this kind of integration, so if I ever wanted to launch my app for real, I could easily add it later.

During this interaction, though, Base44 turned the tables on me and gave me a prompt to respond to:

As you can see in the screenshot above, my options were to submit my API keys to activate the email integration or to skip adding the integration. I chose the latter. However, I didn’t tap the Skip button. Instead, I sent the instructions as a normal text message in the chat window.

That message went immediately into Base44’s message queue, where it got stuck. I waited patiently for a few minutes and sent another message to see what would happen. That message also went into the queue.

At this point, I reached the stage where doing the same thing and expecting a different result was at the forefront of my mind, but just to be sure, I sent one more. Sure enough, I got the same result.

After switching to Discuss Mode and asking why my messages were stuck in the queue, only to have that message get queued as well, I knew it was time to contact customer support.

I went back and forth with an AI support bot a few times, but it did not resolve the issue. Then a human joined the chat and informed me that the queue buildup was due to my not responding to Base44’s request about the API keys.

In short, Base44 did not consider my typed response to skip valid because it expected me to either submit my API keys or click the Skip button. Since I did neither, it got stuck.

It’s a bit of an odd quirk that I’m sure Base44’s engineers could fix, but in the grand scheme of things, it was minor. Once you learn it, it’s not an issue moving forward.

The two biggest debugging takeaways

Overall, debugging went smoothly, and from memory, even more smoothly than when I previously reviewed Base44. The main difference between the two app-building tests is that this time around, with some exceptions, my bugs were resolved with a single prompt.

The two most important things to remember if you end up using Base44 yourself are that:

1. There's still no end-to-end (E2E) testing, so you have to manually verify every button and user flow yourself.
2. Most issues can be solved by switching to discuss mode and asking Base44 directly. For the rare cases where that fails, customer support is available and responsive.

Base44 features that made the difference

Base44 has a lot of useful features, and depending on what you’re building, some might be more valuable than others. However, the three below are probably the most universally helpful, regardless of your project specifics:

1. Built-in security scanner

This tops the list. Not because it’s the most glamorous feature, but because it’s among the most — if not the most — important features. On a personal level, I found the scanner convenient because it quickly checked my codebase for issues I would have had to check manually.

For someone just getting started with vibe coding, and at the risk of sounding cliché, it’s a total game-changer. Knowing security concepts still helps, but not knowing is no longer a dealbreaker. The scanner stops you from shipping a Swiss cheese codebase, so you can focus on the fun parts of your app.

2. The specific item edit selector

This on-screen tool lets you click a specific element in your app and give Base44 instructions to edit it directly. I used it about 35% of the time while building.

The main reason was time savings. By tapping directly on the element, I was able to bypass having to describe “the what” and was instead able to focus directly on “the how.” If you’ve ever used the Inspector tool in a modern web browser, then you’ll feel right at home with this feature.

3. Discuss Mode

I’ve used a good amount of AI app builders, and most of them have some version of Base44’s Discuss Mode. It’s simply a way to talk to the AI tool, without it touching any part of your code. Previously, I used it very minimally. This was partly out of habit and partly to save my AI credits for actual building.

What changed this time is that due to my previous experience building with Base44, I remembered how generous the monthly credit allowance is. That made me feel more comfortable leaning into it because I didn’t have that paranoia of running out of credits mid-build.

In the end, I’m glad I loosened up because there’s a difference between bouncing ideas off of Claude inside Claude versus bouncing ideas off of Claude inside Base44.

When you're inside Base44, Claude can actually read your codebase in real time, which means you can ask more specific questions and get more precise results. It’s more efficient and lets you make better decisions.

The finished app

After about 150 prompts and two days of work, I finished building the working demo of my ClearSpend spending tracker app. The app itself looks great, with a modern UI, a matted, pastel color scheme, and a nice combination of Jakarta Sans and Inter font.

Everything I tested works, though there's always a chance an edge case could surface bugs down the line.

All things considered, I'm satisfied with the outcome and definitely feel I got my money's worth on the $40/mo Builder plan. 

The only things I would do differently if I were launching this as a real project are adding the integrations for banking, credit cards, and additional 2FA options, and changing the name. The name isn't bad, but when publishing to Base44's subdomain, I discovered someone else had already taken it.

Otherwise, the budgeting app is solid.

Who this workflow is for

One of the biggest differences between vibe coding with AI app builders now and in 2024 is that the initial output from a thorough first prompt is much higher in quality. Particularly when you’re using a high-level builder like Base44.

The debugging you had to do in the early days of vibe-coding was heavy. If you tried to build a moderately complex project like the budgeting tracker I did here, it would’ve taken you much longer than the two days this took me.

Frankly, you may have never finished at all if you didn’t learn how to debug your own code. (I say that as someone who learned to debug ReactJS out of necessity back then.)

That's no longer the case. At this point, a vivid imagination and the ability to articulate your vision clearly are all you really need. Learning more about development and design will still accelerate your results, but it's no longer a prerequisite.

Bottom line

So, does the "anyone can build an app" claim actually hold up?

Based on my two days with Base44, I'd say yes, but with one honest caveat. You don't need to know how to code, but you do need to know what you want. The clearer your vision and the better you can describe it, the more useful Base44 becomes. The vague "I want a finance app" prompts will still get you vague results.

What's changed is everything downstream of that. The user flows, the security guardrails, the dependency choices, the design decisions — all the stuff that used to require a developer or spending endless hours in a debugging death loop. Base44 handles that for you now.

If you’re a small business owner or an aspiring entrepreneur and you’ve got a great idea for building something that will solve a problem in your own industry or one you have intimate knowledge of, then I encourage you to give it a shot.

For a deeper comparison of Base44 against other tools, check out my breakdown of the best AI app builders.

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This article is sponsored by Base44.