Code migration horror stories: what we learned shipping to production

Why Your AI-Built App Works in the Builder But Breaks in Production You shipped something in Lovable or Bolt in a weekend. It works. Revenue is happening. Then you try to scale it, and suddenly you're discovering things the builder never told you about. Here's what's actually happening: AI builders are optimized for iteration velocity, not production constraints. They hide infrastructure decisions that bite you later. Let me walk through the three problems you'll hit. Problem 1: Your database is hostage When you build in Lovable or Base44, your data lives on their servers.