What is vibe coding?
Vibe coding is building software by describing what you want to an AI and letting it write the code. You judge the result by trying it, not by reading the code.
By rwaft ·
Where the term comes from
The AI researcher Andrej Karpathy coined it in February 2025, for a way of programming where you “fully give in to the vibes” and forget that the code even exists. It caught on fast, because it named something a lot of people had started doing.
How it works
- You describe what you want in plain words.
- An AI model writes the code, often many files at once.
- The tool runs or builds it and shows you the result.
- You try it and say what to change, and the loop repeats.
Vibe coding tools
- Prompt-to-app builders, which handle the code and the hosting: Lovable, Bolt, v0, Replit, Base44 and rwaft
- AI code editors for developers, like Cursor, Windsurf and GitHub Copilot, which work inside a codebase you manage
- Website builders with AI, like Framer, Wix and Webflow, which draft a site you then edit visually
Side by side: how the prompt-to-app builders compare.
Where it works well
- Websites, landing pages and portfolios
- Prototypes and demos, to test an idea before investing in it
- Small personal tools: trackers, calculators, quizzes and games
- Internal tools with a few users, on builders that include a back end
Where to be careful
- Anything that handles money, health data or personal information: have someone who can read code review it
- Security: AI-written code can have holes you won't find by trying it
- Long-lived products: someone eventually has to understand the code to maintain it
- Facts and figures the AI writes into your site: check them
Vibe coding with rwaft
rwaft is vibe coding for websites, with the curtain open. You describe a site, and instead of a spinner you watch the real build: the plan, the installs, the build output and the fixes rwaft makes when something breaks. The result is a React and TypeScript app at its own link.
See it in the 29-second trailer.