How to move your whole Base44 app to Claude Code/Codex

You built your app on Base44, and now you'd rather build it in Claude Code or Codex. Maybe you already do most of the work with Claude and paste each fix into Base44's chat, paying a credit for every message. That chat runs on the same Claude models anyway. But your app has users, data and logins in it, and starting over isn't an option.

What you want is your app in Claude Code like any other project: the code on your computer, Claude Code changing it, a push to put it live, and no Base44 bill. Most people who email me about Claude Code want exactly that. The two answers they usually get are to keep Base44 and connect Claude Code to it, or to download the code and tell Claude Code to take Base44 out. Neither one moves your app.

Base44's CLI, MCP server and GitHub sync all keep your app on Base44

Base44 gives you four ways to work on your app with your own coding agent. Send to Coding Agent is a button in the editor that writes a prompt for you to paste into Claude Code. The Base44 CLI is a command-line tool you install so that Claude Code, Cursor or Codex can read and change your app's files. The Base44 MCP server is a connector, the thing that lets Claude talk to a service directly, and Base44 is in Claude's own list of connectors. And GitHub sync copies your app's code into a GitHub repository and copies your changes back. All four need Base44's Builder plan ($50 a month) or a higher one, and without it the connection is refused.

Base44 didn't build any of this so your app could leave. It built it because people kept asking to work on their apps with their own tools. Two-way GitHub sync is the most-voted request ever on Base44's feedback board, with 539 votes, and an MCP server for Claude got 86. So Base44 opened the code to your tools and kept the app itself on its own servers.

Once Claude Code is connected, it edits your code inside Base44's cloud sandbox, Base44's own copy of your files. Every change goes into your app on Base44 the moment it's written, with no step where you look at it first. If Base44's editor and Claude Code change the same file, whichever saved last wins and the other change is gone. The sandbox allows Claude Code 60 changes and 120 reads a minute. And to put a change in front of your users, you still press Publish in Base44.

Running the app on your own computer with the CLI gets you a copy that still depends on Base44. The data sits in a throwaway database that's wiped when you stop, signing in and the app's AI calls are forwarded to the live app on Base44, and the automations don't run at all.

None of it changes where your app runs. It runs on Base44's servers exactly as before, so your users still spend your integration credits on every AI call and every upload, Base44's rate limits still apply to it, and the plan renews every month. You pay Base44 $50 a month just to be allowed to use Claude Code on your own app, and the app stays exactly where it was.

The code you can download isn't your app

The obvious way out is to skip all of that, download the code and leave. But the code you can download is only part of the app. Whether you export it or sync it to GitHub, you get the same thing: the screens and the backend functions you wrote. Everything those screens do when someone uses your app runs on Base44's servers, in Base44's own server code, the same code that runs every app on the platform: signing your users in, saving and reading every record, keeping the files they upload, calling the AI, sending the emails, running the automations. None of it is in any file you can get. Open the repo in Claude Code and it will edit the screens all day, but every button on them still calls Base44. Run those screens without Base44 behind them and the whole app stops working, not just a feature or two.

Base44 says you aren't locked in, because you can eject. Its eject command creates a new project with its own app ID and an empty database. Your screens and your table definitions are copied, your data isn't, and the new project runs on Base44 just like the old one. So eject doesn't take you off Base44. It gives you a second app on Base44, with none of your data in it.

Telling Claude Code to remove Base44 means rebuilding Base44's whole backend

Since the backend isn't in the code, the next thing people try is to have Claude Code write one. They hand it the downloaded code and tell it to take Base44 out. That's quick only if your app is a static site: pages and pictures, nobody signs in, and nothing gets saved. Then there's no backend to replace.

Anything more than that is a different job. If people sign in, if the app saves anything, if it sends an email or runs a single function, Claude Code has to write Base44's whole backend again from scratch: a login system, a database and every piece of code that reads and writes it, file storage, the AI and email calls, the automations. It can't see Base44's server code, so it has to guess how each piece should behave, and the only way to know whether it guessed right is to test every part of the app yourself. People who've done it on a real app talk about three weeks of work, hours every day, or 150 hours in total, and about security holes in what Claude wrote that they were still finding weeks later. Your records have to be moved into the new database, and every one of your users has to set a new password, because Base44 doesn't hand passwords over. At the end you don't have your app in Claude Code. You have a new app that Claude wrote from the old one, with bugs nobody has found yet.

On any normal app, Claude Code is all you need

On any other project, the code is in a repository you own. You open the folder, Claude Code reads it and changes it, and you run the app on your computer to look. When it's right, you push, and it's live. The backend is just more code in the same folder, so Claude Code changes a login rule the same way it changes a button. There's no platform in the middle, and no plan you pay for the right to connect.

Your Base44 app can't work like that, because it has no backend of its own. The screens are yours. The server code that runs them is Base44's, and Base44 doesn't give it out. For your app to run like a normal app, someone has to write Base44's entire backend again, outside Base44.

How to get your whole app off Base44 without rebuilding it

I got out of Base44 the long way, with an app of my own. I'd gotten frustrated with Base44's chat and was writing almost all the code myself, and I kept getting stuck on libraries Base44 wouldn't let me install and baked-in code it wouldn't let me change. So I rebuilt Base44's entire backend for my app, piece by piece: the sign-in, the database layer, the files, the AI and email calls, the functions, the automations. It took months, for one app. Then I turned every step of it into a tool that does the same job for anyone's Base44 app. That tool is EscapeBase44.

You sign in with Base44, choose the app, and choose the accounts it should run on: your hosting, your database, your GitHub. The migration runs on its own. Your app gets a backend of its own, the one thing Base44 never gave it. That's the whole server that runs your app, as code you can read and change, in a GitHub repository under your own account. And the app itself lands on your accounts as it is: the screens, every record in the database, the uploaded files, the backend functions and automations, the integrations, and your users, who keep their passwords. Nothing in your app is rebuilt or changed. The app on Base44 isn't touched by any of this, so your users keep using it until you've seen the new one run, and then you cancel Base44.

After the move, your app is a normal project in Claude Code

Open the repository in Claude Code, or in Codex or Cursor, the way you'd open any project. It comes with a CLAUDE.md and an AGENTS.md, files written for coding agents, with what an agent can't work out from the code alone, like where the app's settings live and how a change reaches production. So you don't spend your first prompts explaining your app to Claude.

Everything the app needs to run is already set up. Claude Code can start the whole app on your computer, backend included, so you see every change before your users do. When a change looks right, tell Claude Code to push it, and the live app updates by itself. There's no Publish button, and nothing else writing over what Claude changed.

The AI features inside your app run on your own key with the AI company, at its price, so your users don't spend integration credits anymore. Claude Code itself costs what you're already paying: Claude Pro, $20 a month, includes it.

If you build with Claude Code, the only thing Base44 was still doing for you was running your app on its servers. Now your own accounts do that, and there's nothing left to pay Base44 for.

Base44 to Claude Code FAQ

• Can I connect Claude Code to my Base44 app?

  Yes, on the Builder plan ($50 a month) or higher. Through Base44's CLI, its MCP server or its Send to Coding Agent button, Claude Code, Cursor or Codex can read and change your app's files in Base44's cloud sandbox. The app itself stays on Base44, and so do its users and the Publish button.

• Do I still have to pay Base44 if I use Claude Code to edit my app?

  Yes, for as long as the app runs on Base44. The connection itself needs the Builder plan, and your users keep spending your integration credits, because the backend your app runs on is still Base44's. The bill only stops when the app, backend included, moves off Base44.

• Does editing through the Base44 MCP server use message credits?

  Edits Claude Code writes into the sandbox don't go through Base44's AI. Asking Base44 to make a change through the connector does: it hands the change to Base44's own AI, which spends message credits. Either way, the app's users keep spending integration credits.

• Can I run my Base44 app locally with Claude Code?

  Not the whole app. Base44's local mode runs the screens on your computer with a throwaway database that's wiped when you stop, and forwards logins, AI calls and integrations to the live app on Base44. After the move, one command runs the whole app on your computer, backend and functions included.

• Can I move my Base44 app to Claude Code by exporting the code?

  No. The export has your screens and the functions you wrote, and the backend that runs them stays on Base44's servers. Claude Code can write that backend again from scratch, which is a rebuild for anything more than a static site. The app only moves as it is when its backend comes with it.

• What does Base44's eject command do?

  It creates a new Base44 project with its own app ID and an empty database. Your table definitions are copied, your data isn't, and the new project runs on Base44 exactly like the old one.

• Do I need my own GitHub account?

  Yes. After the move, the repository with your app's complete code, backend included, is transferred to your own GitHub account. That's the folder you open in Claude Code.

• How do changes go live after the move?

  You push to main. The repository's own deploy runs on every push and updates the live app, so there's no Publish button and nothing to copy anywhere.

• Do I lose the preview if I leave Base44's editor?

  No. One command runs your whole app on your computer, with real logins and real functions, and you see every change there before you push it.

• What does Claude Code cost?

  Claude Pro, $20 a month, includes Claude Code, and so does the Max plan. That's the only subscription you need to keep building after the move. There's no Base44 plan and no EscapeBase44 subscription.

• Can I use Codex or Cursor instead of Claude Code?

  Yes. The repository is a normal codebase, so Codex, Cursor, VS Code with any assistant, or a developer all work on it the same way, and the CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md files in it are written for every one of them.

• Does my app still depend on Base44 after the move?

  No. It runs on your own hosting and database, with its backend as code in your own repository. The one exception is each user's first sign-in on the new app, which checks their password against the old Base44 app once so nobody has to reset it. After that, Base44 isn't involved.

• Does the AI inside my app still cost integration credits after the move?

  No. Your app's AI features run on your own key with the AI company, at its price, fractions of a cent per call. Integration credits are a Base44 thing, and they go with Base44.