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Launch Checklist · Bolt.new

Launching a Bolt.new app? Here is the gap between demo and production.

Bolt.new is built for speed of iteration. The checklist below is the speed-of-iteration tax you pay back before real users show up.

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Bolt.new (StackBlitz) is optimized for the fastest possible loop from prompt to running app in the browser. That optimization target, iteration speed, means the generated code tends to favor "runs in WebContainer" over "runs safely at scale." Before you point a domain at a Bolt.new export, the items below are worth an explicit pass.

Because Bolt.new apps are frequently exported and deployed to a separate host (Vercel, Netlify, Render), the deploy step itself is where several of these gaps get introduced or missed, environment variables that worked in the Bolt preview do not automatically carry over correctly.

Bolt.new-specific

What gets missed on Bolt.new apps.

Env vars lost on export

Variables set in the Bolt.new preview environment do not automatically transfer to your deploy target. Re-verify every secret is set on the actual host.

No error monitoring by default

Bolt-generated apps ship without Sentry or an equivalent. You find out about production errors from users, not from an alert.

CORS and API route assumptions

Code generated for the WebContainer preview sometimes makes networking assumptions that break once deployed to a real domain.

FAQ

Common questions.

Do I need to re-check anything after exporting from Bolt.new?

Yes. Environment variables, CORS configuration, and any hardcoded preview URLs need re-verification on your actual deploy target. What works in the Bolt.new WebContainer preview does not automatically carry over.

Does Bolt.new set up error monitoring?

No, not by default. Add Sentry or an equivalent yourself before launch, otherwise the first person to find a production bug is a user, not you.

Other stacks

Building on something else?

Lovable
Lovable ships a working app fast. "Working" and "production-ready" are not the same checklist.
Replit Agent
Replit hosting makes shipping trivially easy. Easy hosting is not the same as production hardening.
v0 (Vercel)
v0 is excellent at UI. Production readiness lives in the layers v0 was never asked to think about.
Next.js (custom)
Hand-rolled means nothing is generated for you, including the parts people forget on purpose-built apps too.
React Native / Expo
Mobile has a review gate a website does not. Miss one of these and you lose a week to a rejection, not a bug report.
Flutter
One codebase, two review processes with different rules. Both need a separate pass.
WordPress
The most-targeted CMS on the internet needs the most deliberate security pass, not the least.
Shopify
Shopify handles the hard infrastructure. Your checklist is everything layered on top of it.
Webflow
Webflow removes the build step. It does not remove the need to check your own configuration.
Custom / other stack
The categories that matter do not change based on your framework. The specific implementation does.
Still choosing

Head to head with the alternatives.

Lovable vs Bolt.new
Lovable and Bolt.new are the two most popular AI app builders in 2026. Lovable is optimised for building full apps with Supabase + GitHub. Bolt.new is optimised for lightning-fast prototyping in the browser. Pick Lovable to ship real products; pick Bolt.new for quick prototypes and experiments.
Before you ship

Find the gaps first.

Stack Grader
Three minutes, ten categories, an honest grade and a fix plan.
Production readiness
What separates a demo from something you can charge for.

Open the tool.

Filtered to your stack, with why, what, and how for every item.

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