Escape Lovable Vendor Lock: 10-Minute Migration to Vercel

Why You Should Leave Lovable

If you built your project on Lovable, you’re likely facing several concerns. Your code could become a public template for other Lovable users. You’re locked into custom subscription plans with no easy exit. Any breaking changes to Lovable’s proprietary scripts could take down your production site.

These aren’t theoretical risks—they’re architectural decisions that put control of your application in someone else’s hands.

Vendor Lock-in : A situation where a customer becomes dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to switch to another vendor without substantial costs or technical barriers.

The good news? Breaking free takes less time than your morning coffee.

The Complete Migration Path

Moving from Lovable to Vercel gives you full control over your codebase, eliminates custom dependencies, and ensures your project remains private. Here’s exactly how to do it.

Migrate from Lovable to Vercel

Complete migration in under 10 minutes

Enable GitHub Integration and Sync Your Code

First, you need to get your code out of Lovable’s environment and into your own repository.

Log into your Lovable dashboard and navigate to your project settings. Look for the GitHub integration option and enable it. This will prompt you to authorize Lovable to create a repository in your GitHub account.

Once authorized, Lovable will create a new repository and push all your code to it. This typically takes 30-60 seconds. Verify that all files are present by checking the repository on GitHub—you should see your complete project structure including package.json, source files, and configuration.

This step is critical because it creates your source of truth. From this point forward, you control the code.

Import Repository to Vercel as Vite Framework

Head to vercel.com and sign in with your GitHub account. If you don’t have a Vercel account, creating one is free and takes about 60 seconds.

Click “Add New Project” and select “Import Git Repository.” Vercel will show you a list of your GitHub repositories. Find the one Lovable just created and click “Import.”

On the configuration screen, set the framework preset to Vite. Lovable projects are typically built with Vite, so this ensures compatibility. Leave the build settings at their defaults—Vercel’s detection is usually correct.

Click “Deploy” and wait 10-20 seconds. Vercel will build and deploy your application, giving you a live URL ending in .vercel.app. Test this URL to confirm everything works as expected.

Update DNS and Remove Lovable Dependencies

Now it’s time to switch your custom domain from Lovable to Vercel and clean up any Lovable-specific code.

Update Your Domain:

In your domain registrar (wherever you bought your domain), update the DNS records to point to Vercel instead of Lovable
Add your custom domain in Vercel’s project settings under “Domains”
Vercel will provide the exact DNS records you need (typically A and CNAME records)
Wait for DNS propagation (usually 5-30 minutes, sometimes up to 24 hours)

Remove Lovable Dependencies:

Clone your GitHub repository locally
Open package.json and search for any packages with “lovable” in the name
Remove these packages from both dependencies and devDependencies
Run npm install to update your package-lock.json
Search your codebase for any imports or references to Lovable packages and remove them
Test locally with npm run dev to ensure nothing breaks
Commit and push your changes: git add . && git commit -m "Remove Lovable dependencies" && git push

Vercel will automatically redeploy with your cleaned-up code.

What You Gain From This Migration

Full Code Ownership: Your repository lives in your GitHub account. You can edit it with any IDE—Claude Code, Cursor, VSCode, or even directly on GitHub. No more proprietary editor lock-in.

No Breaking Changes: Lovable can update their scripts and APIs without warning. Once you’ve removed their dependencies, those changes can’t affect your production site.

Vite : A modern build tool that provides fast development experience for web projects with features like instant hot module replacement and optimized production builds.

Privacy Protection: Your code won’t become a public template. On Lovable’s shared plans, your project structure and implementation details can be exposed to other users as example templates.

Cost Control: Vercel’s free tier is generous for small projects. As you scale, their pricing is transparent and predictable—no custom subscription plans with unclear terms.

Standard Deployment Pipeline: You’re now using industry-standard tools (GitHub + Vercel). Hiring developers, implementing CI/CD, or adding monitoring tools becomes straightforward because you’re not fighting against a proprietary platform.

Common Issues and Solutions

Build Fails on Vercel: Check that your build command in package.json is correct. For Vite projects, it should be vite build. Also verify that all dependencies are listed in package.json—Lovable sometimes handles dependencies outside the standard npm flow.

Environment Variables Missing: If your app uses API keys or secrets, you’ll need to manually add them to Vercel. Go to Project Settings → Environment Variables and add each one. Vercel encrypts these automatically.

Custom Domain Not Working: DNS propagation can take time. Use a DNS checker tool to verify your records are updating globally. Make sure you’ve added both the A record for the root domain and CNAME for www (or vice versa, depending on your setup).

App Looks Different: Check for hard-coded URLs that reference Lovable’s CDN or asset hosting. Update these to use relative paths or Vercel’s asset handling.

Beyond the Migration

Once you’ve migrated, you can edit your codebase directly from your preferred development environment. Want to add a feature using Claude Code? Clone the repo and start coding. Need to fix a bug with Cursor? It just works.

You can also set up proper CI/CD workflows, add automated testing, integrate with monitoring tools like Sentry or LogRocket, and deploy preview environments for every pull request—all standard practices that are difficult or impossible on Lovable’s platform.

The migration removes technical debt before it compounds. Every day you stay on a proprietary platform is another day of features built on someone else’s foundation.

Will my site go down during migration?

No. Keep your Lovable deployment running while you set up Vercel. Only update DNS records once you’ve confirmed the Vercel deployment works correctly. DNS changes take time to propagate, so there’s typically no downtime.

What if I'm using Lovable-specific features?

Most Lovable projects are standard React/Vite applications with a few proprietary wrappers. Identify which features depend on Lovable packages and either reimplement them with standard libraries or find alternative approaches. The Lovable package is usually just a thin wrapper around common tools.

Can I migrate back to Lovable if something goes wrong?

Yes. As long as you don’t delete your Lovable project, you can keep it as a backup during the transition. However, once you’ve removed Lovable dependencies from your code, re-introducing them would require reverting to an earlier commit.

Do I need to know Git to do this migration?

Basic Git knowledge helps but isn’t strictly required for the migration itself. Lovable handles the initial push to GitHub automatically. The main Git operations you’ll need are git add, git commit, and git push when removing Lovable dependencies—and there are GUI tools like GitHub Desktop that make these easier.

Is Vercel the only option?

No. You can deploy to Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, AWS Amplify, or any static hosting service that supports Vite builds. Vercel is recommended because it has excellent Vite support, generous free tier, and simple setup—but the process is similar for other platforms.

The Bottom Line

Ten minutes of migration work eliminates months of potential headaches. You’re trading a proprietary platform for industry-standard tools that thousands of developers use daily.

Your code becomes portable. Your deployment becomes predictable. Your architecture becomes yours.

The only question left is whether you want to migrate now or wait until Lovable makes a breaking change that forces your hand.

Key Takeaways

Enable GitHub integration in Lovable to sync your entire codebase to a repository you control
Import the repository to Vercel as a Vite project for instant deployment with zero configuration
Update DNS records to point your custom domain from Lovable to Vercel
Remove all Lovable-specific npm packages and code references to eliminate vendor lock
Migration takes under 10 minutes with no downtime if executed correctly
Vercel gives you full code ownership, standard tooling, and protection from breaking changes
After migration, you can edit your project with any IDE including Claude Code, Cursor, or VSCode