Base44 is an all-in-one AI app builder: you describe the app, its AI builds it, and the app lives inside Base44's platform — frontend, database and hosting. Gemmein starts from the opposite end: build wherever and with whichever AI you already use, keep your code, and add the AI-native backend — sign-in, customer data under seven plain-English rules the server enforces, AI tools on your own OpenAI, Anthropic or Google key (never the browser), prepaid credits, payments through your own Stripe, your own trained model connected through a relay, and an admin console. Want one closed tool that builds and hosts? Base44. Want to own your AI product's code, customers and money? Read on.
Read docs.gemmein.com/llms.txt. Does Gemmein fit my app? Tell me first, then set it up.
Paste it to the AI you already build with (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Bolt); it reads the guide and answers for your app.
Side by side
| Base44 | Gemmein | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An AI app builder: describe it, and their AI builds and hosts it | The AI-native backend under an app built anywhere: sign-in, protected data, server-side AI on your own keys, credits, payments, relays and an admin console — from a browser, an Expo app or a Swift app, on one contract |
| Who writes the app | Base44's built-in AI, in their editor | Any AI you already use (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Bolt), or your own hands |
| Where the app lives | Inside Base44's platform, on their hosting | Anywhere you like; Gemmein never hosts or touches your code |
| Sign-in | Built-in platform auth | Passwordless email codes, so no 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 |
| Customer data | Platform database | Collections under seven plain-English safety rules, enforced server-side and on by default. Shared, community and direct collections have their learned shape sealed at go-live, and the boundaries are provable: the reaffirm script, which apps copy into CI, proves them on every deploy |
| Payments & access | Platform integrations | Your own Stripe: subscriptions from Payment Links and one-off digital products, each granting the access or the credits you attached to it. A product can also be sold through a relay, or defined before it has a road at all. The app proves what's paid with g.purchases.mine(), and Gemmein never holds, moves, or processes money |
| AI in the product | Their AI builds the app, metered in message credits | Named AI tools your customers use, on your own OpenAI, Anthropic or Google key, which stays on the server and never reaches the browser. Native tools cover chat, image, speech, video and transcription; each carries the access it requires and its price in credits per call, and a provider failure before the first output byte refunds the credits. No server function of your own to deploy |
| Workflows | Their AI writes the code, inside their platform | Relays: a verified provider event, a schedule or a record change runs up to ten actions in Gemmein's own verbs — fulfil or refund a product, grant or revoke access or a plan, grant credits, write a record, email the person, call your URL, or hand a run to your own pipeline. Your own trained model or heavy job runs on your own host behind that call, with the customer context intact |
| Who owns the customer | User accounts live in Base44's database | You: their email, their records, their subscription, in your Stripe and your admin dashboard; emails go out from your own domain once it's verified, and replies land in your Inbox |
| Running the business | Builder workspace | An admin console: Customers, Subscriptions, Payments, Collections, Relays, AI, Inbox, Logs, Alerts and Usage & billing. Suspend a person, end their sessions, grant or revoke access, comp credits, replay a relay event, and read the activity record. Irreversible actions ask you to confirm |
| Price shape | Credit-based plans, free to ~$200/mo: message credits for AI builds, integration credits for running apps | Development never bills. Live is one banded plan, $50–$150 a month by the people who used your app the previous month; a person counts once, on their first signed-in request |
Their side is described from public pages as of August 2026, so check their site for current details. Ours is the product's own contract.
When Base44 is the better choice
- You don't have an app, a codebase, or an 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 terminal, even through an AI assistant.
- You want your builder, database, and hosting to be one bill and one dashboard, and you're comfortable that the app lives inside that platform.
When Gemmein is the better choice
- The app already exists, vibe-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 the code to be yours: in your git, on your hosting, portable on the day you want to leave.
- You want the money in your own Stripe and the customer relationship in your own hands.
- Your product sells AI operations. You name each tool, gate it by the access it needs, price it in credits per call, and your provider key stays on the server.
- The workflows around the product should be configuration: a verified provider event, a schedule or a record change runs Gemmein's own verbs, with every run logged, retried and replayable.
- You'd rather have seven safety rules that can't be misconfigured than a platform surface you have to trust blind.
Questions
Can Gemmein take an app built with Base44 (or any AI builder) live?
If it's a web app in JavaScript or TypeScript whose code you can host yourself, yes, and Gemmein doesn't care which AI wrote it. 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?
No. Your app's code and hosting stay wherever you like (Vercel, Cloudflare, any static host). Gemmein is the layer underneath: sign-in, customer records with server-enforced safety rules, file uploads and delivery under the same rules, live lists by polling, customer email from your own domain (five event emails per person per day), Stripe subscriptions and products, AI tools priced in credits, relays for the workflows 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 verbs 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. Anything that thinks — a model call, a render, a transform — runs on your own host behind that call, and your server asks Gemmein who the person is and what they hold before it acts. A chat call has a shorter road: a named AI tool on your own provider key, priced in credits.
Who handles VAT and sales tax?
You do, and that is by design. With Gemmein, every payment lands in your Stripe account and the customer is legally your customer. Merchant-of-Record platforms (Paddle, Lemon Squeezy) work the other way round: they become the seller of record, their name is on the card statement, your customer is contractually theirs, and in exchange 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 founders 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 customer relationship in return for paperwork you may not owe yet. Gemmein never holds, moves, or processes money either way. Stripe does that, inside your own account. Stripe is built in. Any provider that signs its webhooks, GoCardless, Paddle or Lemon Squeezy among them, drives access the same way through a relay.
What can't Gemmein do?
Gemmein is for apps with email-code sign-in: on the web, on iOS and Android through Expo, and on iOS and Mac through the Swift package. Social login, 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.
Build anywhere. Launch with Gemmein.
Let your AI check the fit first. If Gemmein matches the app, it can wire it up from the docs.
Read docs.gemmein.com/llms.txt. Does Gemmein fit my app? Tell me first, then set it up.
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