Many of the online app builders don't allow you to switch the model to an open model and charge premiums for tokens, Some of the app builders even want you to paste DB credentials in the chat which to me was a complete no no
I have been working on an alternative to this model , where you bring your own servers and use any AI harness to build and host apps
You bring 3 things
1. A server - even your laptop will do or a $5 VPS - should run docker 2. AI harness - anything - Cursor , roo , Claude , Pi - It should speak MCP 3. AI Api key
You use an mcp in stdio mode to drive a remote sandbox on your own server , and then with one click , just deploy the app publicly
The backend is on docker and I plan to extend it to other backends soon
You can build anything that you can build on Lovable or Replit , even full stack apps , You can bring your databases, bind env variables and integrate almost anything without the secrets ever leaving your machine or your server
Everything is TLS end to end, Your server needs no inbound ports
I would love some feedback on this, The core is open source , The hosted service is free to use
Here is something I built today
A real-time operations dashboard for research vessels, combining live tracking, mission planning, and environmental monitoring in a unified interface (https://vessel-ops-dashboard-4c3976e79335c1aa.agentry.live/)