I have a daily mandarin orange with my breakfast, and always try for one not too small, sweet and squirty/messy (thin skin can make a-peel harder!) and large mandarins, easy to peel but sorta … tasteless.

So that whole Goldilocks-style/porridge heat balancing act of tradeoffs is where I happily find myself.

I enjoy Reddit, even when you go to a subreddit about anything, such as Base44 (my first encounter with that is the last blog entry) and you inevitably find lots of complaints (who signs in/visits a sub to say only nice things?!) – and where a few folks said Floot was better. (Rhymes with Groot;-)

And Perplexity agreed – I tried a real head-to-head comparison, also including the new GPT-5 ability to create websites without codes, and the WordPress AI Web Builder.

So with kudos and a nod from Perplexity, I went off to try Floot – also at first for free but then when I hit the credit limit pretty fast- hey, give away the store and go broke! – and when I ran out of free credits, I bought a reasonable starter monthly price.

It works much the same as Base44 – a very friendly chatbot who tries to make the vision happen. I think I see why it has fans – in part because Base44 just got bought by Wix and in the transition, folks are not getting support ticket responses. Not good.

As you can see from this screen shot and the one on the Base44 blog post, each is attractive in its own way. But I’ve gotten farther with Floot, working on the reading and writing interfaces, the ability to import content and even how to sign up/log in, create a profile etc.

Sticking with a similar rough price, because if this ever does become a real startup, the idea of giving it away to start is troublesome, because when you give something away then start charging for it, folks get understandably made.

BUT… I want this whole idea to happen, so early users wouldn’t be charged, most likely, not unless setting up for payments is far easier than I expect.

But I’m crazy – I’m even making each bot – the new one came up with a great name, Flo! – aware I am trying the other platform. In fact, I may even show the early mockups to each other and say “top that, do it better!” Let competition provide a better pair of platforms, making for a possibly tougher eventual decision of which way to go.

Whether I make a ‘real’ app/platform is almost secondary to enjoying using these new bleeding-edge tools – doing the ol’ “compare and contrast” – and more importantly, making new friends along the way!

Even more fun – the things built on one of the platforms can make one start thinking about how to evolve the other platform. I am trying to help the AIs make the writing and reading interface as similar to a good e-book is NOW, then ADD the ability to update easily – and to interact with other readers and the author – as e-books should have evolved into years ago!

Jazzed I am!