What vibe coding is, and why I don't do it
It's the newest buzzword in my industry. Here's what it means in plain English, and why your website won't be built that way.
I've watched page builders, themes and drag-and-drop tools all promise to make web developers obsolete. Vibe coding is the first that can produce something that looks finished in an afternoon. That's exactly what makes it risky.
make me a website for my roofing company with a quote form
Done! Your website is ready to launch.
What nobody checked
- Private keys readable in the page source
- Quote form wide open to spam bots
- Google sees an almost empty page
- Nobody has read a single line
So what is vibe coding?
The term comes from Andrej Karpathy, one of the founders of OpenAI, in a post from February 2025. You describe what you want, an AI writes the code, and you judge the result by how it looks on screen, not by what's underneath.
- Step 1
Ask
Tell an AI tool what you want in plain English: "make me a website for my roofing company."
- Step 2
Accept
Take whatever code comes back without reading it. If it looks right on screen, it ships.
- Step 3
Hope
When something breaks, paste the error message back into the chat and try again.
"Fully give in to the vibes… and forget that the code even exists."
A website that looks done isn't done
To be fair to Karpathy, he said it was fine for "throwaway weekend projects," and he's right. The trouble starts when someone uses it to build what a business depends on. After a decade of doing this, I can tell you most of the work lives in the parts nobody looks at until they break.
Security holes you can't see
AI tools regularly put private keys straight into the page where anyone can read them, leave contact forms wide open to spam bots, and skip the checks that stop someone stuffing junk into your database. None of it shows on screen. It shows up later, as a spam flood or a surprise bill.
Slow pages
Generated code pulls in whole libraries to do one small job. Fine on office Wi-Fi, a crawl on a phone with two bars in a parking lot.
Google sees a blank page
Everything drawn by JavaScript after load, with no real titles or descriptions behind it. To a search engine it can look almost empty.
Customers left out
Form fields with no labels, gray text on gray, buttons a keyboard or screen reader can't use. They cost you real customers.
It looks like every other site
The same five gradients, the same glowing cards, the same stock layout you've seen a hundred times this year.
Nobody can fix it
This is the big one. When the person who "built" your site never read the code, every change is a gamble. Ask the AI to move a button and it may quietly break your quote form. Six months in, you have a site nobody understands, including the person you paid.
How I build instead
Hand coded means I know what every line does and why it's there. If you call me about a problem, I don't have to go ask a chatbot what my own code is doing.
Parts made by people
Hand-built parts, mostly written before anyone had heard of ChatGPT, and fixed on real business sites since.
Every line read
I read and test every line before launch. If I can't explain what it does, it doesn't go on your site.
Forms that hold up
Spam protection, checks on the server and not just the browser, and leads that actually reach your phone.
Search basics by hand
Every page gets its own title, description and structured data, with the content there when Google shows up.
Tested on real phones
Not just a resized desktop window. Checked on actual phones and built to load in under two seconds.
Same person, every year
Changes next year are made by the person who built it, not someone seeing the code for the first time.
"So you don't use AI at all?"
I do, and I'd be lying if I said otherwise. AI is a good power tool. It's fast at boilerplate, handy for a second look at a tricky bug, and it saves me time on the boring parts.
The difference is who's in charge. A carpenter with a nail gun is still a carpenter; someone who bought a nail gun yesterday isn't.
- Who reads the code
- How I use AIMe, every line
- Vibe codingNobody
- Who decides how it works
- How I use AIMe, with ten-plus years behind it
- Vibe codingWhatever the AI guessed
- When something breaks
- How I use AII know where to look
- Vibe codingPaste the error back in and hope
- A year from now
- How I use AISame person, same code, easy changes
- Vibe codingStart over
"I'll vibe code you a site for $5"
Someone actually offered this in a thread I was in: a whole website for five bucks, done in an hour or two. And honestly? They can probably get something on screen in that time. But the page is the smallest part of the job.
If someone can do everything on that list for $5, they're a saint, and I'd genuinely love to know how they're paying their bills.
There's a difference between buying a site for $5 and hiring a web professional for $49 a month.
- The $5 websiteVibe coded in an hour or two$5 /once
- A page on a screen
- Your photos, wording and business details, gathered with you (not included)
- Domain registered, DNS set up right (not included)
- Spam filtered, real leads texted to your cell (not included)
- Built to show up in local search (not included)
- Business email at your own domain (not included)
- Someone around when it breaks or needs a change (not included)
- Starter planHand coded, no setup fee$49 /month
- A site I can explain line by line
- Your photos, wording and business details, gathered with you
- Domain registered, DNS set up right
- Spam filtered, real leads texted to your cell
- Built to show up in local search
- Business email at your own domain
- Someone around when it breaks or needs a change
Questions to ask any web designer
Whether you hire me or someone else, these will tell you pretty quickly if a site was built or just generated.
How does my contact form stop spam, and where do the leads go?
Where does my site get hosted, and who has the passwords?
What will Google see when it loads my home page?
If something breaks on a Saturday, who fixes it and how long does it take?
Can you walk me through how one part of the site works?
If the answer is "I'd have to check," that's fair. If it's "I'd have to ask the AI," keep shopping.
Vibe coding FAQ
Vibe coding is building software by describing what you want to an AI tool and accepting the code it writes without reading or understanding it. The term was coined by Andrej Karpathy in February 2025.
Not for everything. It's a fast way to sketch an idea or build a personal side project. It's a bad fit for anything a business relies on, like a website that has to take leads, stay secure and show up in Google, because nobody involved understands the code well enough to fix it.
You can get something on screen, sure. The hard part is what comes after: security, speed, search visibility, accessibility, and changes a year from now. If you go that route, at least have someone who reads code look it over before it goes live.
I use AI tools the way a carpenter uses a nail gun: to go faster on work I already know how to do. Every line on a client site is read, tested and understood by me before it launches. That's the difference between using AI and vibe coding.
Ask whoever built it to explain how one part works, like where your contact form sends its messages. If they can walk you through it, it was built. If they'd have to go ask an AI, it probably wasn't.
You'll get a page on a screen. You won't get a domain, business email, spam filtering, leads sent to your phone, local search work or anyone to call when it breaks. Those are the parts that actually bring in customers.
Want a site someone actually understands?
Hand-coded websites from $49/mo, no setup fee, built and looked after by me.