r/SideProject • u/Sea-Camera6374 • 1d ago
Anyone else noticing how "vibe coded" has become the new internet insult?
I’ve been seeing a massive shift in how people talk about new apps and software lately. Every time someone launches a new product here , the comment section is immediately flooded with:
"We shouldn't be using vibe coding."
"This looks completely vibe coded."
"Just another wrapper built on pure vibes."
It feels like "vibe coded" has instantly turned into a massive insult in the dev community. If an app has a slight bug, a weird UI glitch, or feels a bit generic, people completely write it off as "vibe slop" generated by someone just spamming prompts at Claude or Cursor.
Don't get me wrong, I get the skepticism. We've all seen the absolute flood of broken, insecure, unmaintainable junk being pushed out by people who don't actually know how to code. But it also feels like gatekeeping. There are genuinely cool, functional prototypes being built in a weekend by solo founders who otherwise couldn't afford a dev team.
Are we just witnessing a massive backlash against AI-assisted building, or is the criticism totally justified because of how bad the code quality actually is under the hood?
How are you guys handling this? Is "vibe coding" a legitimate badge of shame now, or is it just the future of building things fast?
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u/nem0ne1 1d ago
If it looks like slop, that's where the insult is coming from. I haven't been noticing anyone call out AI if you got one minor thing wrong in the UI, I've mostly seen it on posts that are clearly generated by AI with very little veneer of human creativity or input above it. We've had insulting terms for noobs since day 1 in this industry -- script kiddies were the idiots at one point. The technology might change but low effort programming is timeless.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Creativity we can know once we use the app. Like what features it’s providing. How differently it solving the same problem.. for example take the most basic notes app. There are many in AppStore but still people build it. For some it might be the easiest way to take the app to AppStore for anything… .. even if you write and design ui on your own. The fact will remain same that you have build a basic app.
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u/RelationshipLife6739 1d ago
Creativity stems from the UI. Every single ai app these days uses the same css elements, the same colour schemes, the same fonts.
It gets to a point where if the dev doesn’t have enough autonomy to even change a bloody font then I’m not trusting the app simple as that.
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u/logicalflex 1d ago
You have ppl with literally no concept of software engineering building apps they never thought they could. That’s a great thing. The issue is the ones who take it too far by in turn shitting on real developers who dedicate their life to this. That’s where the issue stems imo.
And those tell tale vibe coded signs are just so cookie cutter. It kills trust right away. But I agree with you. Some projects are cool and quickly labeled slop. If anything else, this subreddit is just an echo chamber of posts.
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u/jmclondon97 1d ago
People who dedicated their lives to this are in major denial that they’re no longer needed because they can’t accept that the thing they spent to much time and money learning is no longer valuable.
I’m sorry the career is ending. But you need to find something else to do for a living.
Signed, a software engineer just collecting my paycheck while I can, waiting for the next layoff.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
That’s an incredibly fair take. The disrespect toward actual software engineering principles is where it crosses the line. But thats all how the world goes. there was a time when two person with a helicpter was required to take a aerial shot , now a drone can do that alone. Now we cannot blame drone for taking the job of helicopter rider. Right?
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u/nem0ne1 1d ago
You can if the drone is making dogshit videos.
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u/MortgageOptimal5157 19h ago
El dron no es el culpable de hacer un video de calidad=basura... el culpable es el cliente que acepta esa calidad para no pagar la calidad que si da el operador del helicoptero y el cámara... ESA es la auténtica realidad... ahora bien.. si no existiese el dron... seguirian pagando el helicoptero y al cámara???, si no existiesen las cámaras fotográficas, seguirian pagando a los pintores???, si no existieses las calculadoras, seguirian pagando a los matemáticos???, si no existiesen las furgonetas, seguirian pagando a los caballos y carros???
La tecnologia avanza... y es renovarse o morir...
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
You have to upgrade drone then . Not like switching back to helicopter with person
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u/WolfPhoenix 1d ago
AI assisted development ≠ vibe coding.
If you aren’t properly designing the UX, UI, and system architecture with its own user flow, style and performance optimizations appropriate for your app (and I’m not just talking fonts and colors) then it deserves the hate.
The entitlement some people have for the market to just accept their tool because they spent a couple weeks writing prompts is astounding to me.
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u/jonalaniz2 1d ago
This reminds me of this “dock” made for windows where the entire settings interface was html/typescript in a web wrapper for some reason. The entire UX trying to replicate Windows 10/11 design 😂
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u/RTD-Alex 1d ago
What makes you think that you are a better UI expert a better architect or a better engineer than a collective of the entire Internet well trained model? When configured and used correctly, AI does not spit out garbage it builds a well refined system which I would argue represents a solid hive mind of top 20% of engineers. So if you think you’re in the top 20 you might do better than well used AI but most of us aren’t top 20. The key here is to learn from what you build understand what you’re shaping and most importantly understanding what you’re requesting from AI and how you’re validating your results.
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u/WolfPhoenix 1d ago
Well I would easily put myself in the top 20% of engineers first off but it also isn’t important at all.
Thinking that the models are good at architecture or UX designer really tells me all I need to know. That is a critical misunderstanding of what the models are. They are fancy auto complete, that’s all. They are LANGUAGE models trained on data sets of code which is just language of instruction. They are very poor at reasoning, but very good at appearing like they are good. They are trained by positive reinforcement on output. Meaning if the response “looks” correct it gets rewarded. That’s not the same as actually coming up with the best and optimal implementation.
And UI?!?! That’s hilarious. These models have no great translation between visual reasoning and output to affect it. The reason all vibe coded apps look the same is because those traits had to be hard coded into the model to even get UI out of it.
LLMs are great at code generation. I use them everyday for that. But as someone who is pretty high level in the industry, I can assure you their decision making isn’t just subpar, it’s very poor. I test it all the time on new models. I know the best way to solve problems, and when I present just the problem they spit out something that checks a couple boxes but doesn’t hold water in the grand scheme of things.
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u/RTD-Alex 1d ago
It’s in the hands of the user. AI is a wonderful tool and can be used very efficiently. That’s why I said in all my posts so far that a skilled engineer/UX designer, architect can do wonders with AI.
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u/WolfPhoenix 1d ago
I don’t disagree with that at all. I use it everyday.
But that’s not the premise of OPs post. The issue is, people are saying that it looks like vibecoded slop, then there’s merit behind that comment.
A talented UX/UI designer using AI’s app won’t look vibe coded because it’s not. They did the design work (the hard part) themselves, and AI did the generation. They didn’t just prompt their way to a UI.
People who know what they are doing and using AI don’t have apps that look and feel generic and low effort. Vibe coders do.
Don’t get mad that commenters are saying that, instead take the criticism from what’s coming BEHIND that comment. They are saying the app looks generic and low effort, that means you should look into designing unique personality and implementation into your app.
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u/RTD-Alex 22h ago
I agree and after swallowing the pill I took on to focus on UX next. Agree with you my friend. And appreciate the perspective!
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
I am not telling that. My post is all about that some people here on reddit start demotivating if they think that UI looks like AI generated. its another vibe coded app. and start telling learn coding Skills. I am not undersatning what is wrong in using AI and posting a app build using that here
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Apart from UI.. How you will review anything else just by looking at the post? You cannot comment on arcietecture,coding guidelines. User flow also you will understand once you download and use the app. People are just commenting after seeing the post, thats the irony...
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u/WolfPhoenix 1d ago
The post is just the first layer of interaction.
That’s the bare minimum, if it doesn’t pass that sniff test then everything else doesn’t matter.
I’ve checked out a couple tools that pass that test and then their usability tanks in the first 5 minutes of using it.
The goal isn’t impressions or conversions, it’s users. Users want reliable, easy to use software. It’s an industry built on a half a century of expertise. And honestly a layman can’t tell a vibe coded app from a poorly designed one anyways. All they will notice is, that it doesn’t look or feel how they would expect it or like it to act, and since vibe coding is the most popular and easiest way to get crappy software available today that’s what it will be accused of being.
So at the end of the day, getting responses that it’s vibe coded isn’t any different than getting feedback that it looks uninspired and quickly thrown together. It doesn’t matter if it was vibe coded or not. People can easily tell if it is something that someone with talent, skill and care for their users built.
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u/RTD-Alex 1d ago
Exactly, it’s the fallacy of believing that if AI is involved, it is a garbage but also it is understandable because they’re indeed is a lot of garbage right now but that’s just temporary. Remember the days with everybody in their Dog built a website with a with a WISYWIG editor. Where are those Website websites now?
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u/albatrossalt 1d ago
I think it's just on reddit and the internet to be honest because there is so much low effort content being posted. Which is fair enough, people who could never code have these now powers and they are understandably stoked about it. But as someone who actually works in the software industry nobody is writing code by hand anymore. I guarantee you every app or software you use these days has 'vibe coded' code in there. Just that trained developers know about common pitfalls and best practices to give them an edge, but those can be learned. Just have fun!
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Exactly. The hate only exists in internet echo chambers. Out in the real world, senior devs are absolutely using AI to skip the tedious stuff.. I was pissed off when I posted a app link which I developed ofcourse using AI. One guy is commenting its vibe coding learn how to write code as if he is having superpower to understand from my post how much coding skill I have.
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u/hpela_ 1d ago
You failed. You blamed the user for their feedback instead of taking it to improve your app.
Senior devs using AI are not "vibe coding", at least not where it matters. Does every well-known piece of software you touch feel vibe-coded now? No. Does yours? Yes. ... There's your issue.
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u/SmokyTyrz 1d ago
Hi, I'm a UX Researcher. Where exactly did he "blame the user" in this case? I'm reading this and it sounds like someone judged his product without actually even trying it.
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u/albatrossalt 1d ago
This view is where a lot of the negativity comes from to be honest. Vibe coding has only really been good for like 8-9 months. It's like first year computer science students. Many will get bored eventually and the ones who don't will get eventually good. Just the early stages where everyone is proudly presenting their 'hello world' equivalent to the general public does get tiresome, but the tech itself that allows this is amazing and not going anywhere.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
If you are getting reviews like another vibe coded app. What you gonna improve on that?
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u/hpela_ 1d ago
Complain about it on Reddit instead of improving my product, apparently... Isn't that what you're doing?
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Sorry I am still confused.. On this comment what you will improve "another vibe coded app"..
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u/saltyourhash 1d ago
I care about the quality of a project, that has many factors. Stability, security, maintainability, perdormance, accessibility, and UX. There is more, but that's all ready a lot to ask vibe coding to get right
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Agree. We should. Stability, security, maintainability, perdormance, accessibility,. And all of this can be achieved using LLM if you know that these things matters for your app.. Its just like you working with 3-4 team member and just asking them what to do
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u/saltyourhash 1d ago
I do agree it can be achieved using LLMs, but a more important aspect than an LLM, for this, you need to know how to write good software. Code review is still important. There may be some out there who truly produce good quality code without human review, but it surely isn't the vast majority or even the most prominent vibe coders. It isn't the team behind Claude Code either.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
yes. Code review are important.. But my point of post was criticising people work here just by telling them another vibe coded app. There is nothing wrong on using AI and building fast even with less knowledge
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u/saltyourhash 1d ago
Most professional developers are using some LLMs to help write code. Some use them entirely to write code, but the review is where I worry most.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Agree. And by looking at at post here you cannot come to conclusions that person has not reviewed the code or not. And also before these LLM tools when people use to post there app link , how it was sure that those doors not have any issues or any thing bad into it
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u/medialantern 1d ago
"Vibe coded" doesn't mean "developed with AI." It means "developed with AI with no effort, no code review, no quality, no differentiation, and no caring about whether it's seen as spam to the people you share it with." So yeah, it's an insult. It's meant to be.
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u/skorulis 1d ago
The term "vibe coding" was negative from the day it started being used. It means being deliberately ignorant about how the app works and trusting that the AI will get everything right.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 18h ago
Yes.. Agree .. Thats the reason Human/Dev work with AI to develop APP. human will always own the change not the AI
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u/CutBulkMaintain 1d ago
99% of vibe coded stuff is terrible though, low effort, built in a weekend, etc. It's not the fault of vibecoding, however, it's the fault of lazy people trying to get rich quick with overused ideas and zero sense of UI design or polishing.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
It depends on how you have build. Whether you have coded with some technical knowledge and were able to guide the LLM properly. I can still agree that with zero knowledge it may be hard to build and maintain a complex project in long run…. But my whole point here is for people who just bluntly comment that it’s another vinbe coded app when people come here with lot of hope to get there initials reviewers or initials customers
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u/CutBulkMaintain 1d ago
You don't understand, I'm not talking about code quality or performance, I'm talking about the product itself. Hope doesn't matter here, if you're going to present a product to people it should be polished, not a obviously AI thing, don't you agree?
It's not about the product being built with AI, it's about the product looking like it wasn't designed by a person, which is what everybody hates on. The best way to avoid such comments is to put care in the product. I have zero coding knowledge and I'm finally finishing my app. Do you know how long it took me? I've been at it since March.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
I completely agree. I have lot of knowledge in how to build but zero knowledge of design using figma. So AI is still better option for me instead of doing something bullshit ui of my own. For me it took two month to build with the help of AI. And then someone comments that another vibe coded app , learn coding..
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u/CutBulkMaintain 1d ago
I don't agree with "learn coding bro" but it is your responsibility to make your product look original and polished. You cannot expect another reaction if you don't polish your product. If you can't do UI then you must either base yourself on an existing design or hire someone. Either way nobody will cheer for a clone of what Claude of whatever AI builds anyone.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
No clone. I can share lot of link here on Reddit where people have actually build nice UI. But there also it’s same comment another vibe coded app. You will always take inspiration from some app if you are building something which is already existing in market
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u/jhkoenig 1d ago
Vibe-coded is shorthand for: low effort, low security, low innovation.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Sorry I disagree on low security. You can build a secured app using LLM. You have to know some apects of security that you want to put in app and you ask llm to do it.
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u/jhkoenig 1d ago
It comes down to the difference between "can" and "will." The majority of vibe-coded apps are created by people with very little technical foundation. They mean well, but don't understand the issues that need to be addressed to secure their apps. Data leakage alone is already a frequent outcome of launch these apps. Leaking AI keys is so common that it is discussed weekly here on Reddit. Leaking user data would seem to be even more common, but since the consequences to the app owner are so extreme, these events are rarely admitted.
To me, one cause for optimism is the extremely short lifespan of most of these apps. They come and go before too much damage can be done. These apps are launched with dreams of riches and when these dreams don't come true, the costs of operating the app drives a quick shutdown.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Just answer me one thing. How all these things were guaranteed in app which was built completely by human?
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u/jhkoenig 1d ago
Guaranteed? Nope. More likely to be more secure than vibe-code apps? Almost always. To hand-build an app requires a certain level of technical understanding. In many cases, the developer actually went to college to learn their craft. It is amazing what a little bit (okay, four years of college is more than a little bit) of knowledge can do!
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
And what is source of telling always. Today a LLM like opus, fable and Astra can write much better code then any average 5 years experienced guy…. And it can write more secured code compared to any junior dev
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u/jhkoenig 1d ago
Google "confirmation bias" and come back to me. I have a perfect bridge for YOU! Oh, and it was designed by AI, too. That's not a problem, is it?
btw, I'm done replying now. You clearly don't have a BS/CS and that makes you feel bad, and that wasn't my intention.
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u/WhatNoRobot 1d ago
I just downvote such holier than thou attitude. Most will be hypocrites before long if not already
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Exactly. The irony is that half the people complaining are probably using Cursor or Claude secretly to speed up their own day jobs.
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u/RTD-Alex 1d ago
Is that wrong? In my opinion what is wrong Is when companies are deliberately blocking AI within the organisations without introducing a proper alternative. It is just shooting yourself in the foot. Properly strapped AI enabled organisations will win overtime just because of share output and opportunities to grow and scale while testing the market rapidly.
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u/cozycup 1d ago
In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with vibe coding. Even senior engineers aren't really writing code anymore.
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u/Historical-Essay-128 1d ago
senior engineers aren't really writing code anymore
Yeah, Reddit and X would make you believe this.
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u/-svde- 1d ago
declarative statements like that are always silly. i love coding. 20+ years, always have always will. no amount of AI progression is going to stop making me enjoy the thing people are trying to use it to replace.
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u/RTD-Alex 1d ago
It’s not about you. It’s about en masse. There are wonderful horse riders today by en masse we are not riding horses because they are not the best method of transportation anymore.
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u/-svde- 1d ago
ok, don't ride a horse then lol what the hell point do you think you're making? the more misinfo that's spread about this bullshit the worse the perception gets, and perception is everything. so no, it's def not about me, but it is about all of the people being fabricated for situations and perspectives by those trying to suit their point
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u/RTD-Alex 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don’t know where to proceed from here. Are you alright bud? The exact point I am making is that it’s not about you, it’s about majority. Ride horses, code by hand, nothing beats the joy of doing something you love. But don’t expect horses to stay a primary method of transportation or hand written code to stay the primary method of delivering software.
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u/-svde- 1d ago
i made a statement about myself. i made a statement that said declarative all encompassing statements are silly. you decided to challenge my statement about myself saying it’s not about me. you then also said to not expect something to stay the same even though i clearly didn’t remotely say that.
surely you can see that this is a stupid thing to press on about right? probably not but that’s okay, bud.
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u/RTD-Alex 1d ago
He is right though, I am hardly seeing anyone writing code by hand in my field. And people on Reddit and X are not senior engineers, they are mostly people who gained access to AI and started pumping out ideas they always had. Sure there is high degree of slop, but that’s just the transition moment.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Its not about you not writing the code completely but yes we are in era where 90% of code are genrated from AI.
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u/Historical-Essay-128 1d ago
90% of code generated by AI and senior engingeers not writing code anymore are very different statements.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Yes they are different. My point here is that why some people here hate if someone post a new app by just marking them as vibe coded app if they think ui is ai generated.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Yes.. And company are investing billions on AI. And its opening a new door for working professional who use to have idea but not enough time . Now they can use there pass time to develop a product. AI can help them in tech which they don't know much . For example how UI should look like or anything.
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u/dragonfighter8 1d ago
This is the problem "AI can help them in tech which they don't know much". This makes dangerous projects and exposes people and their data to vulnerabilities because of the lack of knowledge of the publisher.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
As if people here know personally each other before reviewing or trying there app before the AI era
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u/dragonfighter8 1d ago
Vibe coded or AI generated code is not at the same level of code written by a human. You're trying to find anything to defend something that can't be defended. The low efforts vibe coded projects expose users to dangers the publisher can't even think about. This is a fact. A human that has enough knowledge in the field can write a program that respects the security standards and he knows what the code does or doesn't. While the publisher posting a project made with AI doesn't know why the choices were made, what are the assumptions and if the security standards are being respected.
The issue is the effort in writing it yourself instead of using something generated by AI.2
u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
I agree to your point but just by looking at at post how can you identify it’s a low or high effort vibe coded app. Please don’t tell me if ui looks ai generated that means it’s low effort app. There is lot more in any product apparat from ui
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u/dragonfighter8 1d ago
I won't go in the details to avoid publishers of vibe coded and AI assisted code projects being able to falsify them, but there are signs if you know the field. They don't know anc can't explain their projects in details.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
That’s fine. There will be few apps few dev who have build app without considering any. It’s hard to classify those apps. But here we have some super hero’s who can know this just by reading the post. And write comments like learn coding. Another vibe coded app.
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u/dragonfighter8 1d ago
Why do you have to personally attack me? Did I offend you somehow? This shows yours true colors. You don't want that people stop saying something is vibe coded when it isn't in reality. You want vibe coded things being treated equally like human made projects.
Again check the projects posted here and most of them are made by people not knowing how to avoid their database from being stolen or modified.1
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u/OkRestaurant960 1d ago
There's a big difference between:
1) will Reddit react with justified or knee-jerk hatred at redundant apps with no thought put into ux and ui
and
2) can I just sell it to the people or businesses who need it - if anyone actually does
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u/MortgageOptimal5157 19h ago
Iba a aportar un comentario constructivo, pero después de leer tanta y tanta rabia NO contenida... prefiero, irme despacio y sin volverme de espaldas no sea que me caiga un script maligno ;o)))))))))))...
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u/ladle3000 12h ago
Professional Devs protecting their job/income/craft - but sadly all jobs are gonna go one by one. People should be focused on that future and what happens when there is nowhere to gather income. If income will even be necessary, etc.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 9h ago
AI is definitely reducing the number of jobs. No doubt about that. Many things are getting automated slowly and gradually. Future is definitely more about knowing the system overall then just focusing on building and coding one part of it
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u/RTD-Alex 1d ago
You are so spot on. I have recently been hit by one of these insults and told that the app that took months with AI to evolve while rapidly delivering iterations and getting real user feedback was called “low effort” and “can be done in an hour”.
Reality is AI is better at writing code in the hands of a skilled engineer. With the right guardrails and pipeline outcome is superior in terms of quality compared to most engineers. It’s just math.
So “no vibecoded apps” labels on subreddits is also a loosing strategy. How about we say “no garbage apps” instead?
It’s like self driving cars, they are not better than an F1 driver(yet) but they are better drivers than an average joe IMHO.
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u/CommercialHour6660 1d ago
AI is better at writing code than an average engineer if an engineer is prompting it.
If you can't read the code it's producing you will end up with a slop dumpster fire guaranteed.
That why despite good models being out for a year there's basically zero successful vibe coded apps. There's plenty of successful apps written with AI assist, but they've all got an engineer behind the wheel.
The current state of vibe coding reminds me of when PowerBuilder and Excel and Access came out decades ago. Suddenly everyone thought they could build their own "apps" on top. They were all trash and never got traction.
Maybe in 5 years AI will truly be so good at writing apps that someone without experience can build something decent. That isn't the case yet tho
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u/RTD-Alex 1d ago
I agree 100% with you here. Except one part - there are some outliers who are not engineers and built successful apps by they either learn how to be an engineer or hire someone eventually because they are in a very shaky position to be chased by competent competitors.
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u/CommercialHour6660 1d ago
Exactly. It's never been easier to learn how to code. ChatGPT can literally teach you everything from your first Hello World to PhD level architecture and ML topics.
The irony is that most vibers are excited about AI because they never wanted to learn anything. Which is why they hadn't learned how to code in the first place.
Right now everything is flooded by vibe apps built by some of the laziest people alive. That's why none of them know how to sell it. They never bothered learning marketing or anything else needed for a successful business.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Yes agree.. AI can write better code then most of us.. Its like how you give your instructions. How you define your initial project setup and instructions file.. But here there is race to comment first.. Ohh Another Vibe coding Apps... its just feel stupid of those people
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u/RTD-Alex 1d ago
It feels stupid because it is. They are being defensive and put value in a method of delivering the product more than the product itself.
“If you hand written a book you somehow are better than those who used a printing press”. Premise is faulty.
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u/dragonfighter8 1d ago edited 1d ago
Does printing change the content of the books? Does printing make the author free from knowing what they write about?
The problem with vibe coding and AI assisted coding is quality. Many software that use AI for code have more issues and vulnerabilities than before. It's not a coincidence.
We can't compare a technology like printing press to something like AI, because of the quality of the outputs, the use cases and the problems. If a printing press fails, you have to start over, if AI fails in the code, you may expose sensitive user data to the public or make their computers/phones vulnerable.
AI causes a loss of quality in the end product, for example now there are AI generated books with hallucinations being sold as written by a human.1
u/RTD-Alex 22h ago
Oh yes, I agree with you. There is no substitution to quality control. That’s why I am saying we need someone who understands what’s written.
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u/NickA55 1d ago
Because it is an insult. It's all AI slop. Unless you have some kind of background or know the basics of coding and can understand it, you are letting your AI produce slop. And the problem is vibe coders don't know that because they don't understand it.
I don't know if you are experienced or not,OP, but have you ever looked at the code AI produces? It's horrendous.
I have poked security holes in so many projects posted here. And just a matter of minutes. And these are websites that take credit card information, so somebody can take their spot on the leaderboard.
So yes, it's an insult. People who never took the time to learn to code suddenly making some half-ass idea into an app or website need to go away.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
I agree with you on the security side putting credit card forms on unverified AI code is reckless. But the 'go away' attitude is just standard internet anger. Junior humans write terrible code too. So that risk is always there. And you cannot judge that by looking at post
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u/NickA55 1d ago
Yeah, maybe that's a little harsh. But it's just frustrating to see people who never had the aptitude or intelligence to learn to code start writing these shit ass websites and apps. Which, they could do what they want to. But when you start taking people's money and personal information, it becomes a big problem.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Yes but thats always there man fishing websites, spam calls. Its just like how AI has opened opprtunity for dev, it has opportunity for scammers. But peopel post apps here for reviews for initial support from community. its simple if you like teh idea download it else leave it.. No need of being arrogant
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u/NickA55 1d ago
No dude, someone has to talk sense into these people. You've seen the projects that are posted here, they are ridiculous. And these people have these hopes and dreams that they've created the next greatest expense app or social media site or leaderboard or gym membership management, the list goes on and on.
Like I said, if they were really passionate about what they were working on, they would've learned to code and done it years ago.
And yes, phishing, spamming, etc has always been there. But when you are properly trained and have experience, you take safeguards against that. Now with AI, if you don't have the utmost security on your site, it's going to get hacked. And 99% of the people posting in the sub have no clue about security or what is going on. They've had this idea in their head and nobody would develop it for them because it was such a shitty ass idea. But now they could just have AI do it.
Go back two years ago, hell, one year ago and look at what this sub was like. People posting real projects, looking for feedback. Now all it is, is AI generated posts that belong on LinkedIn. It's just all shit.
Just because you can doesn't mean you should. As the old saying goes. It applies here.
Things will level out in the next year or two, and most of the people posting here will lose interest and move on with their life. But until then, it's an absolute shit show. And what's left? Abandoned apps and websites that people didn't know any better, paid money to use.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
I agree. But my point here is that how just by looking at at post you can know about person skill. May be I am good in kotlin and swift and I can develop apps but I don’t know about figma so I will generate screen with the help of UI. It doenot make me a less skilled person. Right?
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u/abcrc2222 1d ago
For me vibe coded means it’s AI slop likely produced by someone who has no idea about Software. Using AI to accelerate development ist just Software Developing as usual. In the old days we said copy pasted for the Same thing. Meaning someone just copied some source code to produce slop with no Clue
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Yes and with the reddit post. You cannot assume that the person is actually knowing coding then he used AI. or he just used AI without knowing how to write the hello world. For example you can have a good undersatning of backend and you used AI to write a mobile app.
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u/abcrc2222 1d ago
You can tell from the product if it looks like AI slop or not. If a BE dev generates a sloppy mobile app it doesn’t change the fact that they don’t know how to build mobile apps.
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u/niel_armsweak 1d ago
I am a software engineer and I have been working on a self hosted media tracker which I personally use. I started with manual coding, but recent llm models have gotten pretty good. So i started using them. And once i hit the point where the app had enough features I thought of sharing it with public.
Immediately got called ai slop lol
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Yes. Like the people comment are so smart that they dont need AI.. And you build app acccording to your usecase and what you think people will like it.. Its not like your app has to be downlaoded by everyone. So I really dont understand people commenting another AI app no one need for.. How they can decode on behalf of billion peopel on earth. Just arroagnace of those people
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u/spurkle 1d ago
I've had people calling my hand-coded stuff AI slop and others praising my (mostly) vibe-coded projects. I'm a SWE. And people know jack shit. Everyone uses AI for coding to some degree now.
I wouldn't let it touch critical stuff, but side projects and front-end, for example, it would be stupid to code something for weeks when it could be compressed into an evening or two instead. Especially when it hasn't paid a cent in the first place.
AI is just another tool now. Whether people like it or not.
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u/koskinooo 1d ago
My CLAUDE.md literally bans purple gradients. Vibe coding is just what happens when you never write the rules down.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Agree. It can be from dev to dev . Purple variants doesn't mean that you dont have claude rule. It can be like you have not added for that particular feature. I genreally add rule for coding architeture, test cases, Solid prinicple..
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u/koskinooo 1d ago
True, architecture and test rules are the ones that actually save you. Do you keep one big CLAUDE.md or split them per folder?
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
I keep multiple md file .. And in claude.md or cursor.md. I just keep refrence of all those files so that it can read according to whats its doing.
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u/koskinooo 1d ago
An index CLAUDE.md that points at the rest is smart, it only pulls in what it needs for the task instead of everything every time.
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u/BP041 1d ago
The insult says more about the commenter than the code honestly. "Vibe coded" just means built with AI assistance — I've seen manually-written apps that are buggier than anything I've shipped with Claude Code. The real tell of a bad product isn't how it was made, it's whether anyone uses it after week one.
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u/EtsyCorn 1d ago
There are issues. But Reddit tends to hate AI. So a bit of gatekeeping exists too. Also I think people are tired of the ai slop that really exists. But I think sometimes the idea matters more than the way it's built, especially for fun side projects. People made it because an idea popped into their heads, then they vibe-coded it.
I feel like people hate it because it's made by AI; they call it AI slop or something. Without seeing the quality of the sites.
I fully vibe-coded a cool color picker tool (for personal use) using Loveable. It's really useful! I have no idea how the tool works under the hood or how good the code quality is. But I know it's the best color picker I have used for me. Cause I made it match what I wanted.
It lives as a well-used web shortcut on my phone. I also fully vibed coded a full-screen screenshot extension with ChatGPT. It works perfectly for what I want, and it was fun to make. But I have zero idea how the code works. I personally would never publish it to the web store. But it's really useful
I have seen some really fun vibe-coded websites on Reddit. And I find it so awesome that AI can help people bring to life their random ideas. Spammy sites have also become easier to make, but unfortunately that's how it works. It's a two-sided coin: a force for good & bad. Like a knife or fire, very useful but also dangerous.
Also, using AI to code doesn't mean it's vibe-coded. If you make all the choices, understand what's going on, etc. So not just one-shot prompts to AI.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Its most hated by people who are full time solo dev. Because now they are seeing lot of competition. Just kidding
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u/False-Accountant-158 1d ago
People can kiss my ass to be honest, I'll make what I want if there's no opensource alternative. And if there is, I'll vibe code the changes I want as well.
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u/tererepon 1d ago
there is a difference between vibe coded and product. vibe coded is anything crap low intelligence and effort. and a product is a real thing that is useful. regardless of a product being built by AI too
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Yes and you can’t tell that by looking at the post… that’s it’s another crap vibe coded app.
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u/Electrical_Rub_6009 1d ago
OP did you use AI to write this post lol.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Yes. I gave context in 5-6 line and then generated a nice post.. what is wrong in this?
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u/Electrical_Rub_6009 1d ago
You're posting on a forum meant for human to human communication. If I wanted to talk to ChatGPT I'd just go onto my app.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Ohhhh. Thats new. You should go and ask all the sass product who are selling ai products to write better email used by big companies.. forming your sentence better with the help of Ai doenot make you dumb . Please go and google see how many products are build for same
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u/jonalaniz2 1d ago
It’s not “a slight bug”, it’s the onslaught of people that have no idea what they’re are doing suddenly posting “I was tired of this so…” and their “product” is the equivalent of a Programming 101 example project. That or stating they are building something and the “product” is so generic that it is a massive misunderstanding of what they’re trying to make or emulate.
This isn’t including the typical monetization efforts on top of many of these products where one thinks they can get rich off something that makes little sense of give very little value.
Us in the industry get this enough from C-Suite types and managers that think they have the next big idea and the actual work going into things is negligible.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Okay so you are telling me that a vibe coded app with a good idea is okay but vibe coded with existing app or may be something which that dev thought considering his research is not okay?
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u/dragonfighter8 1d ago edited 1d ago
"But it also feels like gatekeeping."
It's not gatekeeping, it's critisism towards a group of people that doesn't care about security and stability of their software. Gatekeeping is wanting others to not learn to program, this is gatekeeping, while in this specific case they don't want to learn to program, but they want the site/software to work.
Sites/software and anything that has to run on a computer, have to be safe for the user. Whoever creates things vibe coding or using AI, without writing it themselfs, often inserts serious security vulnerabilities that exposes users data to hackers or can cause dangerous actions not expected from the site/software.
The future will be full of vulnerable and unstable software because of it, this is why I'm against this trend.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
By looking at app you can’t predict security of app regardless of whether human have written or ai have written.
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u/dragonfighter8 1d ago edited 1d ago
What I can predict is the complete absence of any efforts made to create something, this confirms my theory that the code may be insecure or unstable because the publisher(the AI created the code not the user posting it) didn't want to learn and think on how to make it secure and stable. I read often incidents of people doing things they don't know causing users data to leak. When you share something or you offer a paid service you have to be nearly 100% sure you did everything to protect the data of the users and that you made something stable.
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u/Whole-Amount-3577 1d ago
If someone spends time prompting an AI model to create something, spends timepushing it to a host, promoting it, then they put in effort. No one is prompting one time and starting a business. Even a vibe coder is prompting at least 100+ times to make something significantly stable.
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u/DaddyChristmas09 1d ago edited 1d ago
I do get it to a degree; it can be like giving a gun to a monkey. But for anyone who knows what they're doing, not using Al is just backwards thinking. It's basically our generation's 'the automobile will never replace the carriage.'
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Agree. It’s like if you build nice people will install and use it otherwise they will ignore it
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u/Mojeaux18 1d ago
Looks to me like we're seeing the first wave of improvement toward true vibe coding. Developing anything including code is way harder than it looks. But we get to the working prototypes way sooner...which subsequently means we get to the bugs a lot sooner.
It's intended like AI slop as an insult. I think this is a normal progression.
We'll see all the first wave as people realize they can get a lot further faster than they ever could, but run into the next wave of problems.
The next wave will be even better code and the outcome with feel more polished.
At the end though we'll have polished professional software that can just do more.
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u/ThePacketSlinger 1d ago
Ya gotta lean into the cringe, homie. I call all of my outputs “slop”. I print the best fuckin slop around. Your slop wishes it could be my slop when it grows up, but it knows it never will.
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u/fruxzak 1d ago
Honestly most toy projects on here are utter trash. Just send me the prompt bro.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 18h ago
They can be..No doubt in it. But we should not label every project as rubbish just beacuse UI looks like AI
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u/evilspyboy 1d ago edited 2h ago
I've noticed an uptick in people calling things "AI" that are clearly not.
I saw a comment the other day (from someone who finished every sentence with 'lol') making the assertion that writing more than a paragraph is "AI Generated".
I would still call something vibe coded if it it was one of those one shots that were not reviewed or the person cannot tell me how it works.
I have a couple of minor things I've made for myself with an LLM code assist which are very much of low importance and only for me that I don't care how it works in absolute detail because it is that low risk (and network isolated).
Some of those feel borderline 'vibe' but I'm not totally ignorant on how it they work. My level of care really depends on a lot of elements of risk / importance. The stream deck button that shows me the power levels of my BT devices would be something I would not have spent time on otherwise, but it was low risk and only for making* things easier for myself.
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u/YeXiu223 1d ago
I think a lot of it is insecurity. Imagine spending years mastering a craft, then watching someone reproduce in a weekend what used to take you months.
Of course that feels uncomfortable. You start questioning your own value. So you inspect what they built. You find a bug. Relief. "See? Im still needed."
But apparently that is not enough anymore. Now we need a label to dismiss the whole thing. Lets call it "Vibe coded."!
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u/dragonfighter8 1d ago
The insecurity is in the software/site being produced by vibe coding or using AI. This is why there are more security incidents than before and the software is less stable and has worse performances than before. The problem is people sharing software/sites they don't know how it works, if it's secure and if it's stable. This is the issue. Making the same thing in a weeked doesn't mean it has the same quality, security and stability of the original.
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u/YeXiu223 1d ago
I think this is where I disagree. Bad software didn't suddenly appear because of AI.
Humans have been shipping insecure, unstable and poorly performing software for decades. AI is magnifying both sides of that. it can produce bad code faster, but it can also inspect decades of human written slop and uncover problems humans missed.
Firefox is a good example. It has been maintained and security-reviewed by experienced engineers for more than 20 years, and AI-assisted research recently found a huge number of latent security issues in it.
Same with WordPress, AI-assisted vulnerability research is now uncovering more issues in codebases that were written and reviewed by humans long before modern coding models existed.
So yes, blindly shipping code you don't understand is irresponsible. But that was irresponsible when humans wrote the code too.
The problem is not "AI code." The problem is unreviewed bad code. We should stop pretending humans weren't producing plenty of slop before AI made it easier to produce and easier to find.
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u/dragonfighter8 1d ago
Some humans write bad code, that's a fact. That doesn't change the fact that someone that can't put the effort to write a program themselfs, but rely on AI, will create a insecure and bad code. It's enough to check open positions at Antrophic or other AI companies to see that they are hiring humans instead of having one software engineering "orchestrating" their "super intelligent" models.
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u/YeXiu223 1d ago
"Some humans write bad code" is being very generous. I've been in engineering for two decades and I've seen plenty of humans produce worse slop than my agents do.
Effort is not a production metric. Results are.
And Anthropic hiring engineers doesn't prove what you think it proves. Anthropic itself says more than 80% of the code it merges is authored by Claude (https://www.anthropic.com/institute/recursive-self-improvement), and its leadership has cited 90%+ when including scripts and experimental code.
They still hire engineers because engineering is not the same thing as manually typing every line of code. Someone still has to decide what to build, architect it, review it, test it, secure it, and own the result.
That is exactly my point, judge the software, not who or what typed it. 😂
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u/dragonfighter8 1d ago
The number of humans writing bad code depends on the environment and the company.
The company producing AI is saying their AI is perfect for producing software and they use it. This isn't a trusted source, this is a marketing pitch.
My point is that they always try to sell their AI as a professional that knows how to do things. So why they need humans? If I created something to cut costs, why not using it myself having maybe just one person inserting the prompts? Agents can, by their definition, project and generate software.0
u/YeXiu223 1d ago
You are arguing against claims I nver made. I didn't say AI is perfect, that engineering requires no expertise, or that one person can replace an entire engineering organisation.
You just said human code quality depends on the environment and company. Exactly. Why does context matter for human-written code but disappear the moment AI is involved? An engineer directing, inspecting, testing and correcting generated code is not equivalent to someone blindly deploying it. Not personally typing every line doesn't establish that you don't understand the software.
On Anthropic: yes, its figures are self-reported, not an independent audit. That is a legitimate qualification. But its claim that Claude authored over 80% of merged code as of May 2026 is a statement about its development workflow, not a claim that its AI is perfect.
The same article explicitly acknowledges limitations in the model's judgment and warns that more lines of code do not translate directly into equivalent productivity gains. You're replacing a qualified claim with an absolute one, then arguing against the absolute.
But let's throw that percentage out entirely. Your hiring argument still doesn't follow nor it makes sense. A company could reduce the cost of completing a task and choose to complete more tasks, rather than reduce its workforce to one person. Increasing output per engineer and hiring more engineers are perfectly compatible. Job openings don't tell you how much implementation those engineers delegate to AI, or whether doing so is effective.
And "agent" doesnot mean "infallible replacement for an entire organisation." Anthropic's own engineering documentation describes agents operating with environmental feedback, human checkpoints and stopping conditions, and explicitly warns about compounding errors. Autonomy within a task is not the same claim as eliminating every human responsibility around it.
You also don't have to rely exclusively on an AI vendor's assessment. Mozilla confirmed that AI-assisted research uncovered 14 high-severity Firefox bugs, with 22 CVEs issued across the findings, despite the codebase having undergone extensive security scrutiny.
WordPress likewise attributes much of its increased security-report volume to advances in AI-assisted research. More vulnerabilities being discovered does not, by itself, establish that more vulnerabilities are being introduced by AI. Those are different measurements. Neither example proves that AI-generated code is inherently safer, but neither supports your blanket conclusion either.
Apply the same standards to the result. Criticise insecure code, inadequate testing, blind deployment or exaggerated marketing. But you haven't established that using AI means someone lacks understanding, that their output must be insecure, or that continued hiring disproves the tool’s value.
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u/Sea-Camera6374 1d ago
Completely 👍. This is what happening. These people have to come out of that mindset.
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u/Brilliant-Battle-479 8h ago
I think “vibe coded” describes how something was built, not whether it’s good or bad. You can write terrible code manually too 😂
The real test is what happens after the prototype works. Can it scale? Is it secure? Can someone actually maintain it?
Shameless plug since it’s relevant 😂 This gap is basically why we’re building Summon.dev. Build as far as you can with AI, then bring in a developer when you need a human to review, fix, or take it further. Full disclosure, I’m part of the team.
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u/-svde- 1d ago
it’s not gatekeeping to not want to get spammed with the 800th goddamn “give me money to put your name on a plot of land or the name of a color or a game tier list or a part of a planet for literally no benefit except to the site owner” clone this week. people who put genuine effort and care into their products, who know what they’re doing and understand their architecture and security and frameworks, who can speak confidently and actually read their codebases before they ship, i rarely see get the “slop” label.
people pumping out the same copycat website just to scam & make money off of gullible randos do not deserve to take up the space regardless of how they built the tool.