Automattic launches Spacefast for agent-built websites and apps

By Rebecca Stone

Automattic, the owner of WordPress.com, launched Spacefast on Monday with a free tier and published pricing that runs from $1 in monthly usage included on Personal to $15 per member per month on Pro.

Automattic calls Spacefast a new company within the group and positions it for people who ask a chatbot to build a site but lack a straightforward way to publish it. The service separates application creation from deployment, giving users more control over which coding agent creates the project.

What does Spacefast actually host?

Spacefast does not sell its own visual builder. The agent builds; Spacefast publishes. It gives the user’s existing agent the instructions and a database, then sends the resulting site or app to a private link where a team can leave comments.

Automattic lists ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok Bot, Meta’s Muse, OpenClaw and Hermes as supported tools. Spacefast also works as an official plugin in Claude, ChatGPT and Grok Bot; other agents can connect through an API, command-line tool or MCP server, and users can link a Git repository.

It supports Vite, TanStack Start, Next.js and Astro projects.

What does it cost, and what is live?

Automattic’s launch pricing covers five plans:

• Free: $0; starter tier.
• Personal: $1 per month of usage included; custom domains and built-in database.
• Go: $5 per month; unlimited spaces and more usage.
• Pro: $15 per member per month; team features and early access.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing; no feature list specified.

Hosting, custom domains and a database are available now. Built-in app sign-in, transactional email and shared team knowledge are not yet live; Automattic says they will arrive in the next few weeks.

Users can restrict what an agent accesses, require approval for sensitive actions, download their files and export app data. Spacefast runs on WordPress.com’s infrastructure, which Automattic says serves more than 15 billion page views a month.

How does Spacefast challenge Lovable?

Automattic is pitching agent choice against Lovable and Emergent, both of which bundle the building interface with infrastructure. Spacefast instead lets the user retain a preferred coding agent and use Automattic for the hosting layer.

Spacefast is led by Batuhan İçöz, who joined Automattic through its acquisition of the messaging app Texts and built the first version during an internal sprint called Radical Speed Month.

The trigger for the project was mundane: non-technical friends kept sending İçöz Vercel links to things they had “vibe coded.” He told TechCrunch that agent choice gives Spacefast an edge over Lovable, while acknowledging that some people will prefer having those choices made for them.

The company soft-launched Spacefast in September. Early users built internal mockups, slideshows and promotional sites.

For companies, İçöz pitches Spacefast as a remedy for “IT sprawl” as marketing teams create landing pages on services such as Lovable. The service can also draw on Automattic products to add analytics, WordPress integration and WooCommerce shops, according to Spacefast.

İçöz said: “People now build websites in ChatGPT or Claude instead of WordPress,” adding that many new sites will not need a content management system.

Why does the launch matter inside Automattic?

The launch follows a turbulent stretch at Automattic: its board forced CEO Matt Mullenweg out before he regained control within days, and the company began layoffs across several properties in October.

The next commercial test is whether teams adopt Spacefast’s agent-neutral hosting once the promised sign-in, transactional email and shared knowledge arrive in the next few weeks, with its free-to-$15 pricing and custom enterprise terms set against bundled builders from Lovable and Emergent.