Vibe coding platform Base44 launches its own AI model
Base44, the vibe coding platform acquired by Wix for $80 million a year ago, has started rolling out its own large language model Base1 to improve defensibility and reduce costs.
Base44, a vibe coding platform that Wix acquired for $80 million just one year ago—when the company was barely six months old and had a team of eight—has started rolling out its own AI model to support users in creating apps with natural language.
The move comes amid intensified discussion in AI circles about whether frontier models are best for all use cases and whether businesses built on others' models are defensible long-term. Founder Maor Shlomo says training and owning the model as part of the entire stack allows for more optimizations on latency, cost, and efficiency.
Base44 hopes its model will eventually outperform frontier models. The first iteration, Base1, was trained on a dataset generated from tens of millions of real user interactions on the platform. However, competitors like Swedish startup Lovable, which reached unicorn status, and frontier AI labs such as Anthropic with Claude Code are also advancing.
Shlomo believes specialization gives Base44 an edge, as frontier models will remain general. Investor Jonathan Userovici cautions against underestimating frontier models, citing legal tech startup Harvey which abandoned plans to train its own model. He notes inference costs have become a meaningful part of the equation, and enterprise customers demand optimization.
While enterprise companies are still a minority among vibe coding platform users, they represent a growing share of revenue. Base44's decision to develop its own model is partly driven by cost reduction. The company states that ownership of the model gives direct control over compute and inference spend, expected to result in a structurally stronger margin profile over time.
This is good news for parent company Wix, which recently announced it would lay off 20% of its workforce. Meanwhile, Base44 has been growing in headcount since the acquisition and announced it had passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue a few months ago. Lovable said it hit $500 million in ARR earlier this month.
