Short answer: the design transfers, the code does not. Nothing is converted — the site is rebuilt to match the design, and the parts a business actually needs (editable content, working email, hosting somebody understands) get added in the process.
First, check which Lovable you have. Since 13 May 2026, new Lovable
projects are built on TanStack Start, which runs server code. Older ones
are React and Vite, which build to plain static files. Open package.json
and look for @tanstack/react-start — if it is there, you have the newer
kind. This changes your hosting options, so it is worth knowing before you
decide anything.
That is normally a week of work, not a day, and it is worth understanding why before you commission it.
Why people move off Lovable
Almost never because it looks wrong. Usually one of these:
- They want to publish. A blog post on a React site means a developer, a commit and a deploy. On WordPress it means logging in and typing.
- They cannot edit anything. Changing a price or swapping a photo needs the person who built it.
- They want SEO and are being told, correctly, that publishing regularly is part of that.
- They used it as a design tool. This is more common than people assume. Lovable was the mood board, not the intended platform.
None of those are complaints about Lovable. It does the thing it is good at — showing you an idea quickly — and then you want something else.
What actually transfers
The design. Layout, colours, type, spacing, the overall feel. This is what you paid for and it survives completely.
The content. Your copy and images move across.
The structure. Page order, navigation, sections.
What does not
The code. React components do not become WordPress templates. The site gets rebuilt — usually in Elementor if the client needs to edit it themselves, or as a custom theme if they do not.
Anything interactive. Forms in a prototype often do not send anywhere. Ones that appear to work may be posting to a service the demo set up, which is not yours. If the project uses Supabase, that part can stay where it is — it does not have to move with the front end.
The speed, by default. This is the one people are most surprised by. A React site on a CDN is fast because it is largely static and served from close to the visitor. WordPress with a page builder starts heavier. You can get it back — I have — but it is deliberate work, not something that happens automatically.
How the rebuild goes
1. Match the design. Often working from the live prototype rather than project files, because that is all that exists. Everything gets measured off the running page: spacing, type sizes, breakpoints, hover states.
2. Choose the build method. Elementor when the client will edit content themselves, which is usually the whole reason for the move. A custom theme when they will not, and speed matters more.
3. Add what the prototype never had. A working contact form with real email delivery. Proper SEO tags. Analytics.
4. Performance. Image sizing, removing font and icon files the theme loads but the design never uses, caching.
5. Go live — hosting, domain, SSL, and moving DNS without breaking email if the domain already receives mail.
What it costs you
Time: typically four to seven days for a marketing site of ordinary size. Longer if there are custom sections a page builder cannot make, which is common — a design tool has no concept of what Elementor can produce.
Some technical elegance. WordPress is heavier than a React app on a CDN. That is a genuine trade.
What you get back: a site your team can run without a developer.
The hosting question, if you are staying put
If you decide not to move to WordPress, hosting depends on which Lovable project you have — and this is where people get stuck.
Older React and Vite projects build to static files. Any static host will serve them: Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, Vercel, or object storage behind a CDN. Cheap and simple.
Newer TanStack Start projects run server code — server-side rendering,
server functions, API routes. Lovable’s own documentation is clear that
these “need a host that runs the server part as well as serving the static
files.” Put one on a plain static host and you get a blank page or a
missing-index error, because there is no index.html to serve.
That surprises people who assume any React project can go on static hosting. It used to be true. For new projects it is not.
When not to do it
If nobody on your team will ever publish anything, WordPress is overhead you do not need. Keeping the Lovable site and paying for the occasional change is cheaper and faster.
The move makes sense when content is going to change regularly and you do not want a developer in the loop every time. If that is not you, the honest advice is to leave it alone.
Have a Lovable, Bolt or Replit project that needs to become a real site? Tell me where it is stuck — see Hansons Kitchens for one I rebuilt in under a week.