What is vibe coding?
Vibe coding means building software by describing what you want to an AI, in plain English, and letting it write the code. Here is what the term means, how it works, and where it falls short.
Vibe coding: the meaning in one paragraph
Vibe coding is a way of building software where you describe the result you want in everyday language, an AI model writes the code, and you judge the result by running it rather than by reading every line. You steer with feedback, such as “make the form shorter” or “the button does nothing on a phone”, until it works the way you want.
The term was popularised by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy in February 2025. He used it for a relaxed style of building: describe the change, accept what the AI produces, run it, and paste any error back in, without studying the code closely. The phrase caught on fast.
Today people use it more loosely, for almost any building where you describe outcomes and an AI handles the syntax. That covers a founder making a landing page over a weekend, and a developer who asks a model for the boring parts so they can spend their time on the hard ones.
A loop of describe, look and refine
Most vibe coding follows the same five steps. The skill is in the first and the fourth: saying clearly what you want, and noticing what is not right yet.
- 1
Describe it
Say who it is for and what it should do: “A website for my physiotherapy clinic, with online booking and a WhatsApp alert when someone books.” The more context you give, the less the AI has to guess. - 2
The AI writes the code
The model turns your description into real files: pages, components, forms and database tables. A good tool also sets up the parts you never see, such as the database and the hosting. - 3
Run it and look
You judge the result by using it. Click through the pages, fill in the form, open it on your phone. You can read the code, but you do not have to. - 4
Refine by chatting
Ask for changes in the same plain language. “Move the prices above the reviews.” “Send the alert to my second number too.” Each change is another round of the same loop. - 5
Publish
When it works, it goes live. Good tools keep a preview copy, so you can check a change before your visitors see it.
What people build this way
A prompt does not need to be long. It needs to say who the site is for, what it should do, and what should happen when a customer acts.
Where vibe coding works, and where it doesn’t
Vibe coding is fast because you skip the code. That is also where its risks come from.
Where it works well
- Websites and apps made of familiar parts: pages, forms, lists, logins and dashboards.
- Getting from an idea to something you can click in an afternoon, not weeks.
- Prototypes to show customers or investors before you pay for development.
- Small changes that would otherwise wait in a developer’s queue, such as new copy or an extra form field.
- Internal tools for a small team.
Where it falls short
- Security
- Code can work and still be unsafe. An AI can leave a database table readable by anyone, put a secret key in browser code or skip a permission check, and nothing on screen will tell you. Logins, payments and personal data need a careful look.
- Maintainability
- Code nobody has read is hard to change later. Each quick fix can add another layer, and after enough rounds the AI starts breaking one thing while it fixes another.
- Testing
- Vibe-coded projects rarely come with automated tests unless you ask for them. A change that fixes the checkout can quietly break the contact form.
- Owning the code
- Some tools keep your project inside their platform. If you cannot take the code, the data and the hosting with you, you are renting the site rather than owning it.
- Hard or unusual problems
- Real-time multiplayer features, heavy data processing, strict regulation and truly new interfaces still need experienced engineers.
How to vibe code without regrets
None of this needs you to write code. It needs you to keep control of the parts that are hard to undo.
- Keep the code in a Git repository you own, so every change has a history and can be undone.
- Check each change on a preview before it goes live.
- Never paste passwords or API keys into the chat. Put them in your hosting’s environment variables.
- After every change, test the paths that matter by hand: sign-up, checkout, the contact form.
- Ask the AI to explain what it changed and why, in plain words.
- Before you take payments or store personal data at scale, have a developer review who can read and change your data.
Vibe coding vs no-code vs traditional development
Three ways to get a website or an app built. None is best at everything.
| Question | Vibe coding | No-code | Traditional development |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you build | Describe it in chat | Arrange blocks in an editor | A developer writes the code |
| What you get | Real source code | A site inside the platform | Real source code |
| First version | Minutes to hours | Hours to days | Weeks |
| Changing it later | Ask in chat, or edit the code | Within the editor’s limits | A developer’s time |
| Taking it elsewhere | Depends on the tool | Usually not possible | Yes |
| Best at | Familiar patterns, fast | Marketing pages, simple stores | Anything, given time and budget |
| Watch out for | Security and code quality | Platform limits and lock-in | Cost and time |
If owning the result matters to you, the row to check is “Taking it elsewhere”. Look for a tool that puts the code in a repository you own and runs the site on accounts in your name. See how the main tools compare.
Vibe coding, with the hard parts already built
Blaubok is a vibe coding tool for business websites. You describe your business in chat, and a real Next.js site is built and deployed in about five minutes. The difference is what the AI writes. Login, the admin, the CRM, WhatsApp alerts, bookings, payments and 290+ more features come from the Blaubok engine, already built and tested on live business sites. The AI wires in the ones you need and writes your pages around them, instead of generating a CRM from scratch.
A ready-built engine
The parts where vibe-coded projects tend to go wrong, such as logins, permissions and payments, are written once and reused. The tables the engine creates ship with row-level security.
Your own accounts
The code sits in your GitHub, the data in your Supabase and the hosting on your Vercel. Free tiers work, and you can see and control all of it.
Preview, then Publish
Chat edits land on a preview first. Your live site changes only when you click Publish, and Vercel keeps every deployment so you can roll back.
Words you will meet
The handful of terms that come up when you build a site by chat.
- Prompt
- What you type to the AI: a description of what you want, or a change to make.
- Brief
- A summary of your project (who it is for, what it sells, which features it needs) that the AI works from.
- Repository
- The folder of code and its full history, stored on a service such as GitHub. Often shortened to “repo”.
- Database
- Where your site keeps its records, such as leads, bookings and orders. Supabase is a hosted Postgres database.
- Row-level security
- Database rules that decide who may read or change each row, so one visitor cannot see another’s data.
- Environment variables
- Secret settings, such as API keys, stored on your hosting instead of in the code.
- Preview
- A private copy of your site with the latest changes, for checking before anyone else sees them.
- Deploy
- Putting a version of your site live on the internet. Publishing is the same idea.
Vibe coding questions
What does “vibe coding” mean?
Vibe coding means building software by describing what you want to an AI in plain language and letting it write the code. You judge the result by using it, and you improve it by asking for changes. The term was popularised by Andrej Karpathy in February 2025.
Is vibe coding the same as no-code?
No. No-code tools have you arrange blocks in a visual editor, and the site usually lives inside that platform. Vibe coding produces real source code, written by an AI from your description. Depending on the tool, that code can sit in your own repository, where any developer can read and change it.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. You need to be clear about what you want and willing to test the result. Knowing some code helps when something goes wrong and when you judge security, but you do not need it to start.
Is vibe-coded software secure?
It can be, but it is not secure by default. An AI can write code that works and still leaves data exposed. Check who can read and change your data, keep secrets out of the code, and have sensitive parts reviewed. Tools that build on tested, ready-made parts leave less new code to check.
What can you build with vibe coding?
Business websites, landing pages, portfolios, online stores, booking systems, simple CRMs, dashboards and internal tools all work well, because they are made of familiar parts. Unusual interfaces, real-time multiplayer apps and heavily regulated systems still need experienced engineers.
Who owns the code when you vibe code?
It depends on the tool. Some keep the project on their platform. With Blaubok, your pages and content sit in your own GitHub repository, your data in your own Supabase and your site on your own Vercel. Built-in features come from the Blaubok engine, a compiled package your site installs like any library.
Try vibe coding on your business
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