What you get
| Base44 | Gemmein | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An AI app builder: describe it, and their AI builds and hosts it | Hosting and a backend for an app built with any AIYour site hosted, sign-in, protected data, server-side AI on your own keys, credits, payments, relays and an admin dashboard, from a browser, an Expo app or a Swift app, through one API |
| Who writes the app | Base44's built-in AI, in their editor | ChatGPT or Claude in a chat, Lovable, Replit, Bolt or v0, or Claude Code, Cursor or Codex, or your own hands |
| Where the app lives | Base44's hostingThe source can sync to your own GitHub repo | Hosted by GemmeinA private preview while you build, then your Live site on up to 5 of your own domains. Or host it anywhere and keep Gemmein as the backend |
| Sign-in | Built-in platform auth | Sign-in codes by emailNo password database exists to breach. Two abuse bounds hold on sign-in emails, and how many an app sends in a day is never capped. A person stays signed in on up to 10 devices and can sign one out or sign out everywhere |
| Data safety rules | Platform database | Eight plain-English rules, on by defaultCollections under eight safety rules, enforced server-side. Collections are declared in your project’s files, and a collection other people read declares its fields before anything is written. Owner approval of posts and one-choice-per-person polls are settings on the rule. The reaffirm script, which apps copy into CI, checks the safety rules on every deploy |
| AI on your own keys | Their AI builds the appMetered in message credits | Named AI tools your people useOn your own provider key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Replicate, fal, ElevenLabs, Runway, Deepgram or AssemblyAI, or any OpenAI-compatible chat provider such as OpenRouter, Mistral or Groq), which stays on the server and never reaches the browser. Native tools cover chat, image, speech, video and transcription, and there is no server function of your own to deploy |
| Credits | Message credits for AI builds, integration credits for running apps | Prepaid credits your people spendEach AI tool carries the access it requires and its price in credits, per call or per 1,000 tokens, and a provider failure before the first output byte refunds the credits |
| Payments & access | Platform integrations | Your own StripeSubscriptions and one-off digital products on Payment Links Gemmein makes, each granting the access or the credits you attached to it. Members manage their plan in a billing portal Gemmein sets up, and the restricted key can’t pay out, refund, or read cards. A product can also be sold through any provider whose webhooks follow a supported signing standard, via a relay, or defined before it has a way to be sold. App Store and Play purchases arrive through RevenueCat. The app proves what's paid with g.purchases.mine(), and Gemmein never holds, moves, or processes money |
| Relays & your own model | Their AI writes the code, inside their platform | Relays: configuration, not codeA verified provider event, a schedule or a record change runs up to ten actions from Gemmein's own actions: fulfil or refund a product, grant or revoke access or a plan, grant credits, write a record, email the person, call your URL, or start an AI tool's run for the event's person.Your own model as an external toolYour own trained model, agent system or heavy job runs as an external tool on your own host, and Gemmein still handles the person, access and credits: one tool, one run, one price, in any language or framework, a multi-agent loop included. Gemmein posts the run straight to your URL, signed, with no relay involved |
| Who owns the accounts | Accounts live in Base44's database | You doTheir email, their records, their subscription, in your own payment account and your admin dashboard. Emails go out from your own domain once it's verified, and replies land in your Inbox |
| Admin dashboard | Builder workspace | A dashboard to run the businessOverview, Inbox, Customers, Subscriptions, Get started, Data, Payments, Domains, Site, Relays, Emails, AI, Logs, Errors and Settings. Suspend a person, sign out one of their devices or all of them, grant or revoke access, comp credits, replay a relay event, and read the activity record. In Live, a change to one customer is your approval in the browser. A change to how your business runs (products and prices, domains, email, Stripe, keys, the Live site) also asks for a code from your email. Going live is your approval, then your plan's payment |
| Price | Credit-based plans, free to $200/moBilled monthly ($160/mo billed yearly): message credits for AI builds, integration credits for running apps | Free to build, one plan per accountDevelopment never bills. Launch is $29, Run a business is $79 and Grow is $199 a month for the whole account — 5, 10 or 25 apps, any of which may go live; annual billing gives 2 months off |
Their side checked against Base44's public pricing page on 25 Sep 2026. Check their site for current details. Ours comes from Gemmein's own docs.
Which to pick
Pick Base44 if…
- You're starting with nothingNo app, no codebase and no AI workflow yet, and you want one tool that does all of it. Describing an app and getting a hosted result the same afternoon is what Base44 is for.
- You never want to see code or a terminalEven through an AI assistant.
- You want one bill and one dashboardBuilder, database and hosting together, and you're comfortable that the app lives inside that platform.
Pick Gemmein if…
- The app already existsVibe-coded in React or built in Cursor or Claude Code, and what's missing is real accounts, real payments, and somewhere to run the business from.
- You want hosting included, and the freedom to leaveBuilt with the AI tools you already use, and any version of your site downloads as a zip.
- You want the money and the relationshipIn your own payment provider account, with the relationship with your people in your own hands.
- Your product sells AI operationsName each tool, set the access it requires and its price in credits, per call or per 1,000 tokens. Your provider key stays on the server.
- You want event handling as configurationA verified provider event, a schedule or a record change runs Gemmein's own actions, with every run logged, retried and replayable.
- You want rules that can't be misconfiguredEight safety rules, rather than a platform-managed security surface.
Questions
Can Gemmein take an app built with Base44 (or any AI builder) live?
If you can export its code, yes, whichever AI wrote it: Gemmein hosts a web app, and an Expo or Swift mobile app ships as usual. Point your AI at docs.gemmein.com/llms.txt and it will map your app against what Gemmein supports and give you a fit verdict before anything installs.
Does Gemmein host my app?
Yes. Your AI publishes it to a private preview, and you put a version live, on your own domain if you like. Or host it anywhere (Vercel, Cloudflare, any static host) and use Gemmein for the rest. Either way Gemmein runs what's behind it: sign-in, people's records under server-enforced safety rules, file uploads and delivery under the same rules, live lists by polling, email to your people from your own domain (five event emails per person per day), subscriptions and products (Stripe built in, other providers through a relay, App Store and Play through RevenueCat), AI tools priced in credits, relays for the events around them, and the admin dashboard you run the business from.
Can Gemmein run my own code, or a scheduled job?
Gemmein runs its own relay actions and never your code. A relay starts from a verified provider event, a schedule or a record change, and can fulfil or refund a product, grant or revoke access, grant credits, write a record, email the person, or call your URL. Gemmein also runs your AI tools — chat, image, speech, transcription and video — on your own provider key, priced in credits. Your own code, model or pipeline runs on your own host behind a signed call, and your server asks Gemmein who the person is and what they hold before it acts.
Who handles VAT and sales tax?
Whoever is the seller of record. With Gemmein the payment lands in your own provider account. Through Stripe you are the seller of record. Through a Merchant of Record such as Paddle or Lemon Squeezy connected by a relay, they are, and they carry the tax filing. Both models are legitimate. Selling digital products to EU consumers can create VAT duties from the first sale, and at heavy international volume a Merchant of Record earns its cut. Most independent businesses sit under the UK's £90,000 VAT threshold and can have Stripe Tax calculate what's owed. So the real choice is whether to hand over the relationship with your people in return for paperwork you may not owe yet. Gemmein never holds, moves, or processes money either way. Your provider does that, inside your own account. Stripe is built in. Any provider whose webhooks follow a signing standard Gemmein supports drives access the same way, through a relay: Standard Webhooks, Stripe’s, or a signature recipe (HMAC-SHA1, SHA-256 or SHA-512, Ed25519 or ECDSA P-256). GoCardless, Paddle and Lemon Squeezy are among them.
What can't Gemmein do?
Gemmein is for apps with sign-in by emailed code: on the web, on iOS and Android through Expo, and on iOS and Mac through the Swift package. Social sign-in, staff accounts and team seats are not available. There are no custom roles or permission lists, no carts or physical goods, and no multi-seller payouts. Credits are prepaid, at the price the owner sets for each AI tool call. Postpaid token-based invoicing is not included. If something isn't in the builder guide, it isn't built, and the guide states its bounds so your AI doesn't invent a workaround.
Add Gemmein to your AI. Then tell it what you want.
Building is free. No card until you go live.