Is Vibe Coding Worth The Hype
I tested Lovable, Replit, and Base44 with the same prompt to see if AI coding tools live up to the hype. Here's what worked, what didn't, and my pick.
2 min read
In today's installment of "there's an AI for that," I needed a prototype for an idea so I decided to test three AI coding tools: Lovable, Replit, and Base44. They all promise to turn your ideas into working apps just by chatting with AI, and I gave them the same prompt.
As someone who's tech-adjacent but not a developer, I guess I'm "vibe coding" now…
Anyway, here’s my experience with all three when I tried to go from concept to clickable prototype.
So did it work for what I needed?
I’d say yeah. They all basically did what I asked, just to different extents. I got functioning prototypes from each that I could click through and use in conversations, but one stood out as a favorite (at least for now).
My Pick: Replit
It didn't just start building blindly. It showed me exactly what it planned to create, gave me options to customize or remove features I didn't want, and waited for my approval before it started coding anything. I appreciated the structured approach. Plan first, approve, then build.
Lovable worked well enough too, but just required more back-and-forth. Base44 got me something basic but felt the most incomplete.
The Big question is what's Actually Happening Under the Hood?
Is the code any good? Well documented? How's the performance? Security vulnerabilities? What happens when I want to use my own designs, connect to my own database, or actually scale this thing? I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes, and that's probably going to matter when I try to go from prototype to real product.
Now will I still need a developer? I’m pretty sure I will. Right now it feels more like a really good starting point that still needs someone who actually knows what they're doing to get it across the finish line. But… how do I know they’re not mostly vibe coding as well? Hmmm
Next up: I'll be going deeper to see how far I, a non-developer, can actually get with an end-to-end build. The gap between "cool prototype" and "something I'd put real users in front of" is still pretty wide, but maybe one of these tools can surprise me.
