Launching today
Mapples
Visual builder for Expo apps, with AI and real code
3 followers
Visual builder for Expo apps, with AI and real code
3 followers
Mapples: the visual canvas for your existing Expo repo. Design on a canvas, sync to real code, keep full control. Not a no-code tool. Not throwaway AI code.
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Hi Product Hunt 👋
Mapples Creator is a visual builder for Expo / React Native apps. You design screens on a canvas with drag-and-drop and reusable components, wire navigation, data and actions, and see a live preview as you go.
Three ways to build with AI:
• Build in web — an assistant on the canvas: pick a style direction, review a plan, build screen by screen, revert any turn with one click.
• Build in agent — one command creates the Expo app and lets Claude Code, Cursor or Codex write real code locally. Edits sync both ways: code changes show on the canvas, canvas edits land in TSX.
• MCP connector — bring your projects into Claude: list projects, update theme, typography and sizing, upload assets.
For teams: collaborate with colleagues, share a preview with customers, and keep theme, typography and sizing tokens in one system so nothing gets lost between design and code.
The runtime is open source (MIT, @mapples/* on npm). Output is a standard Expo project: Expo Router, EAS Build, no lock-in.
Free to start → app.mapples.org · Docs → docs.mapples.org
Would love your feedback — what would you build first?
Mapples Creator 2.0 - a visual builder for Expo & React Native where the canvas and your code are the same thing. You design on a canvas, and you get real Expo code you own. Not a mockup, and not a JSON blob you need our servers to run.
Everything below is real screenshots and recordings of the product, no mockups. Most of it uses our Echo podcast template; the native shots use Tally, a habit tracker (also one of our templates). I hope to show you how many tools Mapples gives you to build something incredible in less time than even Lovable or agent “vibe coding” can.
First, let me start with the problem I was trying to solve with Mapples Creator. As a developer, CTO or founder on so many projects 😄, I kept running into the same thing: FIGMA DESIGN CHANGES! I hate it so much. You’re almost done with the work and then, ba-dum 🥁, QA starts opening issues saying your screens don’t match the designs, the logic, etc. You check the designs and… THE DESIGNS HAVE CHANGED! Nobody knew about it except the client and the designer. 🤬 So you start digging into what actually changed: grabbing your glasses and a magnifying glass 🔍, going through the Figma version history, because some changes aren’t even visible.
And that’s why I’m presenting this product: Code to UI, UI to Code!
What it does today
1. Your whole app on one canvas. Every screen, plus the navigation around it (stacks, bottom tabs, drawers, modals), laid out where you can see it.
2. Or just describe it. There's an AI assistant (beta) right in the editor. Here I asked for a Downloads screen; it built it, added it to the stack, and even screenshotted its own work to fix two things that looked wrong. Every turn can be reverted in one click, and what you get are normal screens you can keep editing by hand.
AI Assistant
3. Style and components, the way you'd expect. A full inspector for layout, spacing, colours and typography (light & dark), all driven by one theme / typography / sizing system for the whole app. Plus a library of real React Native components: inputs, lists, grids, media cards, image backgrounds and more.
4. Prototype the flows. Connect screens with pushes and tabs by dragging. That's the actual navigation your app ships with.
Prototyping
5. Real code, two-way sync. This is the part I'm proudest of. On the left is the actual "Home.tsx" Mapples generates for that Home screen on the right. It's plain TSX with "@mapples/ui" components and a "Styler"stylesheet. Edit the code and the canvas updates; tweak something on the canvas and it lands in your TSX. "npx mapples sync" keeps both sides in step.
Code to UI - UI to Code
6. Hit Play. Click through your app right in the browser, on a real device frame, in light or dark. Every template has a live Play link, so you can try it without even signing up.
Web preview
7. Share it, get feedback, let the AI fix it. Turn on a share link and anyone can open the project in a browser or the Mapples Preview app, no account needed. With "can comment" on, reviewers drop a pin right on the screen and leave a note. In the editor you see the comment live, hit Resolve in AI, and the assistant makes the change, tells you what it did, and you mark it resolved. In the GIF (sped up), Sam asks for "Subscribe" instead of "Follow" and the AI has it done!
8. And it's native. This is our Tally habit tracker template, exported with the mapples CLI as a normal Expo app and running natively on the iOS Simulator and an Android emulator, with real sign-up, data and streaks. Same project, both platforms, and dark/light follows the system.
9. Bring your own coding agent. Prefer Claude Code, Cursor or Codex? One command from the Build dialog creates the Expo app and installs the agent's skills. The agent writes the code locally at your own token cost, and you watch every screen appear on the canvas.
npx mapples create my-app --secret <key> --agent claude
There's also an MCP connector, so Claude (Claude Code, claude.ai or any MCP client) can work with your Mapples projects directly.
___
No lock-in, promise
* The runtime is open source (MIT) on npm: @mapples/render, @mapples/ui, @mapples/style, @mapples/stateand friends.
* Standard toolchain: Expo, Expo Router, React Native, EAS Build. iOS, Android and web.
* If you walk away tomorrow, you keep a normal Expo project.
Honest feedback is what got us here, so keep it coming. I'll be in the comments all day 🙌 I'm the founder, so obviously biased 😂 If you are interesting in project in next posts I also can describe the new workflows I invented that will really change the model you communicate with clients