Can I Export My Base44 App and Host It Myself?

Yes — on the Builder plan or higher, Base44 lets you export your app's code as a ZIP file or connect it to a GitHub repository, and you can export your data table by table as CSV. The code export is real and yours to host wherever you like. But it isn't a full clone: Base44's docs describe no way to take the hosted backend itself with you, so a fully independent copy means rebuilding that part elsewhere. Here's exactly what each export includes, sourced from Base44's own documentation, and what to do with each piece.

What is Base44?

Base44 is an AI app builder: you describe an app in a prompt, and it generates a working full-stack application — a React frontend plus backend functions and data entities — that you keep refining through more prompts inside its own editor. It's a different category from a website builder like Squarespace or Wix; the thing it produces is closer to a small web application with a database behind it than a marketing page. If you've used Lovable instead, the shape of the question is the same but the mechanics differ — see moving a Lovable project to your own hosting for that platform's specific export path.

What plan do I need to export anything?

Base44's documentation is direct about the gate: "Downloading a ZIP file and connecting to GitHub both require a Builder plan or higher" (Base44 docs, "Developer tools", checked September 2026). The Free and Starter plans sit below that line. Check Base44's pricing page for current plan prices. Data export as CSV is a separate feature, covered in its own section below, and isn't gated the same way in the documentation.

How do I export my app's code as a ZIP?

In the app editor, open Code and click the Export project as ZIP icon at the top right of the code view (Base44 docs). You get a zip archive of your app's code.

Base44 also documents an API route to the same export: a GET request to /api/apps/{app_id}/coding/export-to-zip on app.base44.com, authenticated with an API key, which "downloads the app's source code as a zip archive" reflecting "the app's current saved code" (Base44 API reference, checked September 2026). Base44 flags this endpoint as beta: "This API is in beta. Endpoints, fields, and behavior may still change, so avoid depending on it in production." Use the in-editor button for a one-off export; reach for the API only if you're automating exports and can tolerate that instability warning.

Once you have the zip, unzip it and confirm it runs on its own before you plan anything around it — that's the same first check that applies to any AI builder's export, and it's the fastest way to find a Base44-specific dependency before you're relying on it in production.

How does Base44's GitHub sync work?

This is a different mechanism from the ZIP download, and it requires the same Builder plan or higher: "GitHub 2 way sync requires the Builder plan or higher," and only app owners can make the first connection (Base44 docs, "GitHub Integration", checked September 2026). The setup:

1. From the Dashboard, click the GitHub icon and select Connect to GitHub.
2. Authorize the Base44 GitHub app and choose the organization and repositories it can access.
3. Create a new repository for your app, or connect an existing one.
4. Clone the repository locally, run npm install and npm install -g base44@latest, then authenticate with base44 login.
5. Run base44 link to connect your local clone to the app, then base44 dev to start local development against the hosted backend.
6. Push your local changes to the connected repository; Base44 describes the connection as 2-way sync, so they flow back into the app.

Base44 describes this as two-way: "When you connect your app to GitHub, your changes are synced to the connected repository automatically." There's a real limitation worth flagging before you connect it, though: Base44's documentation adds "there's no option to manually push updates from your Base44 app to GitHub" — sync happens automatically on Base44's own timing, not on a button you control. It also has an irreversible side effect: "After you connect GitHub to your app, you cannot use Version History to revert to versions from before the GitHub integration." Don't connect GitHub until you're past the experimental, prompt-and-discard phase of building the app, or you'll lose your Base44-native undo history for anything that came before.

Base44's own pricing page frames the ceiling plainly, separate from the mechanics above: "Two-way GitHub sync exports the full source code to your own repo at any time," alongside the broader claim "You own everything you build on Base44: your code, your data, your users" (base44.com/pricing, checked September 2026). Treat "at any time" as describing the sync's automatic, ongoing nature rather than a manual export button — the documentation above is specific that there's no manual push.

How do I export my app's data?

Data lives separately from code, and it exports separately too: click Dashboard in your app editor, then Data, select a table, click the More actions icon, and click Export. "Your data downloads as a CSV file you can open in spreadsheet software such as Excel or Google Sheets" (Base44 docs, "Managing your app data", checked September 2026). The documented steps work on one table at a time, so repeat them for every table your app uses. Base44 frames this as useful "for backup, analysis, or to use in other tools," such as handing data to an accountant or building a custom report outside the app.

What can't I take with me?

• The live backend and database, as a running system. Base44's documentation describes exporting code and exporting data as CSV. It doesn't describe a way to take the hosted backend itself with you, so plan to rebuild it and import the CSVs.
• A one-click reconnection to another host. Base44's documentation doesn't describe a hosted-elsewhere deployment path — once you have the code, standing up hosting, environment variables, and any external services it depends on is your own project, the same as with any exported codebase.
• Version history predating a GitHub connection. Connecting GitHub is a one-way door for Base44's own revert feature, as noted above.

How do I set up a custom domain?

Base44's documentation states custom domains are "available on the Starter, Builder, Pro, and Elite plans" — not Free (Base44 docs, checked September 2026). You can connect a domain you already own by configuring DNS records Base44 provides, or buy a new domain through a Base44-integrated registrar. Base44 states it issues and renews the SSL certificate automatically once a domain connects. Documented limits: "up to 150 domains and subdomains to a single app, and up to 350 domains in total across your account."

A step list for actually leaving

1. Confirm your plan. Builder or higher for code export; Starter or higher for a custom domain.
2. Export the code. Use the in-editor Export project as ZIP, or connect GitHub if you want ongoing sync while you're still iterating inside Base44.
3. Export every data table you use, as CSV, one at a time from Dashboard > Data > [table] > More actions > Export.
4. Unzip and run the code locally before you touch hosting — confirm it builds and starts with no Base44-specific step you haven't accounted for.
5. Stand up your own backend and database, importing the CSVs, and rewire the frontend code to point at it.
6. Move the domain last. Update DNS only after the independent copy is verified working on its own temporary URL, so there's no window where your live domain points at something broken. If your domain itself was registered through Base44 rather than connected from elsewhere, check transferring a domain away from your website builder first — the general steps and DNS-record risks it covers apply regardless of which builder issued the domain.
7. Keep the Base44 app running until the standalone version is confirmed working end to end — nothing about exporting deletes the original.

Bottom line

Base44 documents a real, current code export — a ZIP download or a two-way GitHub sync, both gated to Builder plan or higher — plus per-table CSV export for your data. That covers ownership of your code and a portable copy of your data. It does not hand you a portable copy of the live backend itself; standing that up, and reconnecting your exported frontend to it, is work you do after the export, not part of it. If you're weighing Base44 against other AI app builders on exactly this question, Moving an AI builder's project to your own codebase covers the same handoff checklist — secrets, database ownership, auth callbacks, a local build check, and a careful domain cutover — for Bolt and v0, and it applies here too.