For teams who want one codebase, not three vendors
Describe what the app does. Playcode builds the React Native app, the backend it calls, and the database behind it in one TypeScript project - so one account signs in on your website and on the phone, and a rule you change once changes in both places.
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Quick answer
Yes. Playcode builds the React Native app and the backend it talks to in one project, in TypeScript. The same accounts, database and business rules serve your website and your phone app, so you add a feature once. Preview on your phone, then build for the stores from the cloud.
Used by people at
Counts registered accounts using corporate email domains from the companies above. Playcode is a self-serve product, not a contracted vendor to these brands.
From the first description to two surfaces on one backend, in three steps
Say what people do in the app and what has to be remembered: who signs in, what they create, who is allowed to see it. Playcode turns that into a data model and an endpoint before it draws a single screen, because that is the part both surfaces share.
You do not have to know React Native to answer those questions. You do have to know your own workflow.
The project holds a React Native app, a website, and the backend they both call, all in TypeScript. Auth, data, and business rules live on the server, so the phone app renders decisions rather than repeating them.
That is the difference from a screen-only app builder: a rule you change is changed everywhere, including on the copy of the app already sitting on somebody's phone.
Open the app in a browser while you iterate, then on your own phone to feel it. When it is ready, the agent runs the build on Expo cloud infrastructure and uploads it to App Store Connect or Google Play.
You bring your own Apple and Google developer accounts, and you click the final submit yourself. The listing is under your name, not ours.
Your website is live!
The same seven jobs, in a typical React Native setup and on Playcode
| What the app needs | A typical React Native stack | Playcode |
|---|---|---|
| One language end to end | TypeScript in the app, whatever the API was written in on the server | TypeScript in the app, the website, and the backend |
| Accounts and sign-in | An auth vendor to configure, priced per active user | Sign-in and sign-up already wired to the backend in the same project |
| The database | A separate hosted database with its own dashboard and its own bill | A real database in the project, reachable by the same backend |
| Web and phone sharing one rule | Copy the rule into both clients and hope they stay in step | The rule lives on the server, and both clients call it |
| The address the phone calls | A host to pick, deploy to, and keep certificates on | A public HTTPS address for the project, injected into the app |
| Store builds | A Mac, signing certificates, and a build pipeline to learn | The agent drives a cloud build and the store upload |
| Undoing a bad change | Revert the code, then repair the database by hand | Restore to a saved point - code, files, and database together, in place |
The parts that only work because the app and the server are in the same place
The React Native screens, the backend that serves them, and the website beside them are all TypeScript. One change can cross all three in a single pass instead of three tickets.
Auth, data, and business logic live on the server and are shared by the website and the app. You add an endpoint once and call it from both, instead of duplicating logic into a client that will drift.
Someone who signs up on your website signs in on the phone with the same email and password. There is no second user table and no account migration later.
On a device the access token is kept in the iOS Keychain or the Android Keystore and sent as a bearer header, rather than a browser cookie bolted onto a phone.
Navigation is built from the files in the app directory, split into a signed-out group and a signed-in group, so a new screen is a new file and no screen has to check auth itself.
A standard React Native project you can read, edit by hand in the built-in editor, or export whole. Nothing is trapped inside a visual builder.
Snapshots cover code, files, and the database together, in place, so an experiment on a live app is recoverable rather than a gamble.
Put the rule on the server, call it from the website and the phone, and test the paths where the two disagree.
The whole argument for one project is that a rule lives in one place and both clients call it. A feature only the phone shows never tests that, so the first one should appear on both.
Ready when: You can name the web screen and the phone screen that will show the same record.
Anything the server owns - who may read a record, what counts as valid, what a price is - stays correct on both surfaces by itself. Anything copied into a client drifts the first time you change it.
Ready when: For every rule in the feature you can say whether it lives on the server or is only a display detail.
Describe the record, the fields that must persist, who may read it, and who may change it. Ask for it as a backend endpoint, not as screen logic.
One endpoint holds the validation and the access rule and returns the shape both clients will render.
Call it from the website first and confirm an account that should not see the record is refused, before any phone screen exists.
Ask for the web screen and the phone screen in the same request, so both are written against the same response. On the phone side the call goes through the API client the project already has, not a new fetch.
The same record appears on both surfaces, with the same fields and the same message when something is missing.
Create a record on the website, then open the phone screen signed in as the same person and see it there.
Sign in as a second account and try to open the first account records. Then close the app completely and reopen it.
The second account is refused by the server, and the first account is still signed in after a cold start, because the token is kept in the device keychain.
The refusal arrives as a server error, not as a screen that quietly renders nothing.
Publish the project so the backend has its public address, then have the agent set the bundle identifiers, run the cloud build, and upload the result to your App Store Connect or Play console.
The published website and the installed build call the same live backend over HTTPS.
Sign in with one account on the published website and on the installed test build, and see the same data on both.
Choose: Put anything that decides what is allowed, valid, or true on the server. Keep only presentation in the screen.
Tradeoff: A rule in the screen is quicker to change and instantly wrong on the other surface. A rule on the server costs a request but stays correct everywhere, including in the version of the app already installed on a phone.
Choose: Build the website first unless your users genuinely cannot do the job at a desk. The web loop is faster, and the backend it produces is the one the phone app will use.
Tradeoff: Web first ships sooner and delays the store paperwork. Both at once catches the places a phone changes the design - small screens, a weak signal, a session that has to survive a cold start - before the backend is settled.
A person signs up on the website, then signs in on the phone with the same email and completes the core action there.
Expected: One account and one record, visible on both surfaces after a refresh on each.
The same form is submitted from the phone with a required field missing, and with a value the rule rejects.
Expected: The server refuses both, and the phone shows the same message the website shows, because the check is not duplicated in the app.
The main save is tapped twice on a weak mobile connection, before the first response arrives.
Expected: The behaviour you chose is visible on screen, and the backend does not end up holding two records.
On the published project, sign in on the live website and on an installed test build from your own developer console, and complete the core action on each.
Expected: Both reach the same live backend over HTTPS, and each one can see what the other created.
Each of these needs accounts and saved data, which is where a screen builder stops
Same accounts, no second login
Your customers already sign in to a portal on the web. The phone app shows the same orders, tickets, and documents, with the same accounts and the same permissions, because it calls the same backend.
One record, two devices
Stock counts, site inspections, delivery status. The office dashboard and the phone app read and write the same records, so nobody re-types the day into a spreadsheet at five.
Rules in one place
Listings, messages, and profiles need a database, accounts, and rules about who may see what. All three live on the server, and the phone app is one more client of it.
A listing under your name
Some products are only credible with a store listing. Build the app, run the cloud build, and submit it under your own developer account when the first version is worth installing.
Playcode has been building and running real projects since 2016
Playcode AI runs the same frontier models that power ChatGPT and Claude - and orchestrates them like a team: it plans the work, delegates to sub-agents, runs long jobs in the background, and reviews its own changes.
The latest models from every major lab, in one picker. Switch anytime.
Big jobs split across specialists - one explores your code, one writes, one audits - working in parallel.
Long builds and migrations keep running while you keep talking. They report back when done.
Have a design in Figma? Paste a screenshot - or a page you like, or a bug - and it builds from what it sees.
Tuned by years of iteration to write production software - structured, typed, maintainable - not throwaway prototypes.
Under every project is a codebase the agent keeps production-grade. And you are never locked out of it: open the file explorer and edit any file yourself - server included. No AI required.
Complete states, secure boundaries, structured code - the bar is what a professional agency would ship.
Browse the whole project - frontend, backend, configuration - and edit directly in the built-in editor.
Invite your developer with the right role, or export the project code and files. Nothing is trapped in Playcode.
Playcode is built for organizations, not just solo builders. Workspaces hold your projects, people, and billing; roles and teams decide exactly who sees what.
Create a workspace per company, client, or department - each with its own members, projects, and subscription.
Admins manage, editors build, viewers watch. Set roles on the whole workspace, on a team, or on a single project.
Group people into teams and give each team its own projects - or a whole folder of them. Private projects stay private, even inside a shared workspace.
Send a project to any email - a client, a contractor - with exactly the access you choose. No extra seat needed.
Work on one project together. Write in the same AI chat together. Every message, edit, and setting is fully synchronized - live, for everyone, on every device.
Everyone works in the project at the same time - even in the code editor - without lock-outs or "who has the latest version".
Start on the laptop, check from your phone: the same live state follows you everywhere you sign in.
Changes arrive over a live connection the instant they happen. Reloading the page is a habit you can drop.
Every click applies immediately on your device. Syncing happens behind you, not in front of you.
Connection dropped? Your changes queue locally and replay the moment you are back.
The queue survives closing the tab. Nothing you did is lost while you are away.
Four ways to get the app and the server behind it, compared
"I built my entire portfolio site in 20 minutes. My clients think I hired a designer. Already got 3 new inquiries this month."
"We switched from Wix to Playcode. The AI actually understands what we need instead of giving us cookie-cutter templates. Saved us thousands."
"I update my property listings from my phone while showing apartments. Clients are impressed when I tell them I built the site myself."
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Really React Native. The project holds a standard React Native app built with Expo: screens as files, TypeScript with strict mode on, a normal package file, and an app config. Open the files, change them yourself, or export the project and build it elsewhere.
Both, in the same project. Playcode runs a real backend and database on a public HTTPS address, and the app arrives already wired to it with sign-in and sign-up working. That is the part most React Native builders leave to you.
No. You describe what the app does and who uses it, and Playcode writes the code. Knowing the stack helps you review the result, and the code is there to read whenever you want it - but the build does not wait for you to learn it.
In the preview, only packages the runtime already carries. A library with its own native code cannot load there, so Expo SDK packages and JavaScript-only libraries are the safe ground. If a feature truly needs a custom native module, it needs a build of its own, and the agent will say so rather than pretending otherwise.
Yes. If your project predates the mobile template, the agent can add the app to it and wire it to the backend and accounts you already have. Your existing users keep working, which is the point of having one project.
Yes. It is real, standard code you own - the app, the website, and the backend. Export the project at any time, or bring your own developers into it and let them edit files directly in the built-in editor alongside the agent.
The agent drives the build and the upload, drafts the listing, and captures screenshots. You need your own Apple and Google developer accounts, each with its own fee and its own approval wait, and the final submit is yours to click. Review takes days and can bounce.
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