Best for
Best for founders and freelancers who want one project published as a native iOS app, a native Android app and a web app without writing code.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
AI App Builders Comparison
Adalo vs. Emergent
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for founders and teams who want a prompt to end in a deployed app rather than a codebase to host themselves.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Adalo | Emergent |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free plan; paid from $36 / month Annual billing is the rate shown by default; monthly billing costs 20 percent more. Plans differ mainly in published apps (1 on Starter, 2 on Professional, 5 on Team), editors and storage. Publishing to the stores also needs an Apple Developer account ($99 / year) and a Google Play developer account ($25 one-time), both charged by Apple and Google directly. | lower value Free tier; Standard $20 / month, Pro $200 / month Billed annually the Standard and Pro plans are $17 and $167 per month. Each deployed app costs a further 50 credits per month. |
| Free trial | Free plan with unlimited test apps, 500 records per app and no publishing | Free tier with 10 credits per month |
| Output | Native iOS and Android apps plus a responsive web app from one project | Deployed full-stack web and Expo mobile apps |
| API | Yes, a Collections API and a Notifications API, plus custom actions against any REST API | Not stated |
| What it generates | Native iOS and Android apps plus a responsive web app from one project, assembled on a multi-screen canvas or built and edited by prompting the Ada assistant | Full-stack web apps and Expo mobile apps, built from a prompt and deployed to a live URL |
| Stack and frameworks | Visual no-code editor with more than 200 drag-and-drop components; a developer mode allows private custom components, and a marketplace adds third-party ones | React and Next.js, Python with FastAPI, MongoDB; Expo (React Native) for mobile. No Flutter, Kotlin or Swift |
| Auth and database | Built-in hosted Postgres database with relational collections; outside data through external collections over REST, Google Sheets and Xano, which can also supply external users | Yes, MongoDB and authentication are set up with the app; Supabase is among the listed integrations |
| Hosting and deploy | Published to an Adalo-hosted domain or a custom domain, and from paid plans to the Apple App Store and Google Play | Yes, one-click deploy in five to ten minutes, custom domains with automatic SSL, 50 credits per deployed app per month |
| Payments | Yes, Stripe payments collected inside the app | Stripe is among the listed integrations |
| Access to the code | Custom components rather than an exportable codebase. A component is bootstrapped outside Adalo with the create-adalo-component tool, which needs Node 10.2 or newer and developer mode enabled on the account, and is published with npx adalo publish, either publicly or privately. Code otherwise reaches an app from the outside: custom actions call any external REST API, and the Adalo API, documented for the Team and Business plans at up to 5 requests per second, reads and writes the app's collections and triggers push notifications. The developer documentation covers building and publishing components and does not document exporting an app's own source | Yes, push to a GitHub repository and branch from the editor, and import an existing repository |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Email helpdesk, Community forum | Not stated |
| Onboarding | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Stripe, Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, Google Maps, Xano, Airtable | more entries GitHub, Stripe, Supabase, Airtable, Slack, Twilio, OpenAI, Claude |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Adalo Free plan; paid from $36 / month Emergent Free tier; Standard $20 / month, Pro $200 / month
- Free trial Adalo Free plan with unlimited test apps, 500 records per app and no publishing Emergent Free tier with 10 credits per month
- Output Adalo Native iOS and Android apps plus a responsive web app from one project Emergent Deployed full-stack web and Expo mobile apps
- What it generates Adalo Native iOS and Android apps plus a responsive web app from one project, assembled on a multi-screen canvas or built and edited by prompting the Ada assistant Emergent Full-stack web apps and Expo mobile apps, built from a prompt and deployed to a live URL
- Stack and frameworks Adalo Visual no-code editor with more than 200 drag-and-drop components; a developer mode allows private custom components, and a marketplace adds third-party ones Emergent React and Next.js, Python with FastAPI, MongoDB; Expo (React Native) for mobile. No Flutter, Kotlin or Swift
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Adalo
Strengths
- One project publishes as a native iOS app, a native Android app and a web app
- Ada, the AI assistant, is included on every plan with no token or usage charges
- Built-in relational Postgres database, so no external backend is required to start
- Flat monthly price with no usage-based or per-action charges
Limitations
- The free plan can build and test but cannot publish an app
- Published apps are capped per plan, so shipping several apps means moving up tiers
- App store publishing needs paid Apple and Google developer accounts on top
- Email support runs on a response-time SLA of three, two or one business days depending on the plan
Emergent
Strengths
- Deploys to a live URL with a custom domain and automatic SSL, no pipeline to set up
- Web and Expo mobile apps come from the same platform
- Code pushes to GitHub, and an existing repository can be imported
Limitations
- The stack is fixed, with no Flutter, Kotlin or Swift
- Every deployed app draws 50 credits a month on top of the plan
- Large gap between the Standard and Pro plans, at $20 and $200 per month
Plans
Pricing
Adalo
- Free $0 Unlimited test apps and screens, 500 records per app, 1 editor, Ada AI assistant. No publishing.
- Starter $36 Per month, billed annually. 1 published app, 1 editor, 5 GB storage, web and app store publishing, custom domain.
- Professional $52 Per month, billed annually. 2 published apps, 5 editors, 25 GB storage.
- Team $160 Per month, billed annually. 5 published apps, 10 editors, 125 GB storage.
- Adalo Blue Not stated Enterprise offering with dedicated infrastructure, custom monitoring, on-premise deployment and connections to data sources without an API. Priced on request.
Emergent
- Free $0 10 credits per month, core platform, web and mobile.
- Standard $20 Per month, or $17 per month billed annually. 100 credits per month, private project hosting, GitHub integration.
- Pro $200 Per month, or $167 per month billed annually. 750 credits per month, 1M context window, custom agents, priority support.
- Business Not stated Custom. Adds role-based access control, single sign-on, shared workspaces and real-time co-editing.
- Enterprise Not stated Custom. Adds audit logs, self-hosted database support, VPC deployment, user-level credit limits and usage reporting.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Adalo
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Emergent
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Adalo https://www.adalo.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-12
Emergent https://emergent.sh · no check date recorded yet
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.