Honestly, as of late "vibe-coding" has started triggering me very similarly as the "n" word (or the earlier "c" word for ai). It removes agency and skill from the developers who architected these solutions.
I don't really see this ending well. I don't like most "hand-coded" alternatives. They usually "tick all the function point boxes," but with terrible usability.
But hey, I'm often wrong. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
That's fine, the bar the originals are setting isn't that high. Both Photoshop vibeslop clones I've tried launch and open a PSD instantly, while double clicking Photoshop is a "reach for the coffee" action.
Does the label "vibe-coded" even make sense if even in major organizations most of the code is written by LLM-based agents? When do you go from saying "prompt engineer" or "vine coder" to just a regular SWE using productivity tools like IDEs of the pre-LLM era.
Is this a joke? The only advantage of vibe coded software is that it can be produced quickly and cheaply and doesn't require specialized knowledge. Assuming cost is not an obstacle, you're better off with the commercial software. And if you want open source, just use a classical open source alternative. If it's missing a feature you want, then you can always vibe the feature into existence. At least then you're starting from a solid baseline.
Vibe coded alternatives have the potential to match functionality of their closed source originals, while being free and open source. LLMs don't get tired or bored, unlike human open source maintainers.
PhotoCraft repo is a couple of weeks old and in early alpha, and already seems to be significantly better than any other open source image editor I tried. And it also opens instantly, while both Photoshop and GIMP take 5+ seconds.
Isn't the entire benefit of AI-driven software that I can easily throw together something that fits my exact requirements? Why would I want someone else's requirements?
I suspect this site will end up similar to the google graveyard. The reoccurring theme with the vibe coded apps is the author gets a lot of press then it is abandoned once the bad architecture collapses in on itself
Why would you not vibe code your own? The popular options theoretically have support, a community, financial backing, some non software service component, etc. without those why would you use someone else's personalized slop abandonware instead of diy?
Am I the only one who reads "vibecoded" as a negative word?
As far as I'm concerned, that's a term for shit software built by people using AI with minimal oversigt and quality control and often no idea what they're doing.
Using AI as a tool, carefully, would then be "agentic engineering".
On one hand installing these locally is a clear a security risk, but on the other hand, I guess we can now decompile and profile binary programs with AI agents them to determine malicious intent?
Even then, it's clearly a waste for each user to run such an analysis, so perhaps major one role of software companies going forward will be as trusted stewards or 3rd party auditors, if not as builders the software themselves.
I see no value in specifically looking for vibe-coded software. The ones that are straight copies are going away soon anyway no doubt, once the lawsuits start hitting
So that means I have to review the whole app myself before I can put this into use within a company? Some of the ideas are good, but I need to find actual pre-vibe coded alternatives to these.
39 comments
[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 43.2 ms ] threadBait so obvious you couldn't fool a mackerel with it.
But hey, I'm often wrong. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Minus points for Fullscreen not working in Firefox.
PhotoCraft repo is a couple of weeks old and in early alpha, and already seems to be significantly better than any other open source image editor I tried. And it also opens instantly, while both Photoshop and GIMP take 5+ seconds.
As far as I'm concerned, that's a term for shit software built by people using AI with minimal oversigt and quality control and often no idea what they're doing.
Using AI as a tool, carefully, would then be "agentic engineering".
Even then, it's clearly a waste for each user to run such an analysis, so perhaps major one role of software companies going forward will be as trusted stewards or 3rd party auditors, if not as builders the software themselves.
Now that AI has turned the cost of software to zero, this might as well be a malware distribution website.
There isn't a company or individual behind it, unsigned (Good luck on Windows) and obviously no tech support if it all goes wrong.
But I guess this comes with the 'abundance' of software.