Is vibe coding bad? An honest look at the pros and cons

The short answer

Vibe coding isn’t bad. It’s a fast way to get something working, and for prototypes, internal tools and one-off scripts it’s often the best option you have. It turns bad the moment you use it for software that real customers, real data or real money flow through, without anyone reading the code.

Vibe coding means building software with AI by feel: you check whether it works and looks right, and you don’t look at the code itself. We explain the term in full in what is vibe coding. This article is about whether you should do it.

The pros and cons at a glance

	Pro	Con
Speed	A working first version in hours or days.	The speed stops at the last step to production, which is often most of the work.
Cost	Testing an idea costs a subscription of a few dozen euros.	An app that has to be rebuilt later costs you twice.
Who can do it	Anyone who can explain what they want.	Only someone who can read code sees what's wrong under the hood.
Quality	What you can see usually works.	What you can't see, like error handling and edge cases, is often missing.
Security	Barely matters for something without users or sensitive data.	Open databases, keys in the code and missing permission checks are common.
Maintenance	Small changes are quick while the project is small.	The bigger the codebase, the more often a new change breaks something else.

Why vibe coding has a bad reputation

The criticism has a source. A model writes code that looks convincing, and that’s exactly what makes it tricky: you can’t tell from the outside whether it’s right. A login screen that works can still give everyone access to everyone’s data. A pay button that works can still process an order twice when someone double-clicks.

In a vibe-coded app, nobody owns that invisible side. The maker judges the result, the AI writes the code, and nobody reads the code itself. As long as nothing is at stake, that’s fine. Once customers start relying on it, it’s a risk you don’t know you’re carrying.

Vibe coding makes it easy to build software you can’t judge yourself. It goes wrong the moment you act as if you can.

Why vibe-coded projects fail

Projects that start with vibe coding almost always get stuck in the same places. The first part goes surprisingly fast, and then things suddenly slow to a crawl.

The last 20 percent

Login, permissions, error handling, backups, monitoring and payments don't show up in a demo. That work arrives with real users, and a model without direction has little feel for it.

Security holes

A database without access rules, an API key in the frontend, a route that doesn't check who's asking. It all works, until someone finds it.

Every fix breaks something else

A model doesn't see the whole codebase at once. After a while it fixes one bug by creating another, and without tests you only notice when a customer calls.

Nobody knows the code

When something breaks, someone has to understand the code to fix it. In a vibe-coded project that's nobody, and then the repair costs more than the build.

Choices that are hard to undo

The AI picks a database, a structure and a login method without asking what you'll need a year from now. Changing those later is expensive.

More on that last step in the last 20 percent of vibe coding.

When vibe coding is fine

There are plenty of situations where vibe coding is the smartest choice. The question that decides it: what happens if the code is wrong?

Testing an idea

If you want to know whether people will use something, a vibe-coded prototype is the fastest route. You build to learn, and you throw it away once you know enough.

Internal tools

A calculator for your team, a script that converts an export, a dashboard just for you. If it breaks, you notice yourself and the damage is small.

Showing a design

A clickable design tells a developer more than ten pages of text. That's where vibe coding shines.

Learning how software works

If you use the AI to explain things and you read the code, you learn fast. At that point you've already moved past vibe coding.

Where the line sits between vibe coding and working with AI the way a developer does, you can read in vibe coding vs AI-assisted coding. For clickable designs, vibe coding is design goes deeper.

When to stop vibe coding

A vibe-coded project has a moment where it turns into a different kind of project. Three signs you’ve reached it:

Real users are coming

Once people you don't know log in, enter their details or pay, you're responsible for what happens to that data.

You're afraid to change anything

If every change makes you worry something else will fall over, the code has outgrown what you and the AI can oversee together.

Your business depends on it

If an outage costs revenue or drives customers away, someone has to be able to read, fix and extend the code.

That doesn’t have to mean starting over. A vibe-coded app can often be hardened: security first, then tests, then the deploy. How that works is in making a vibe-coded app production-ready.

Conclusion: the tool is fine, the use decides

Vibe coding is a fast way to make software you don’t have to understand yourself. For anything you can throw away, that’s an advantage. For anything customers rely on, it’s a risk you only see when it’s too late.

✅

Good for = learning and testing

Prototypes, internal tools, clickable designs and scripts that only need to work once.

⚠️

Risky for = software with users

Anything with login, personal data or payments needs someone who reads the code and signs off on it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is vibe coding bad?

No, vibe coding is a good way to quickly build a prototype, an internal tool or a one-off script. It becomes a problem when you use it for software with real users, personal data or payments without anyone reading the code. That's where security holes and missing error handling hide, and you can't see them from the outside.

What are the pros and cons of vibe coding?

The pros are speed, a low cost to test an idea and a low barrier: anyone who can explain what they want can build something. The cons sit in what you can't see: security, error handling, maintenance and choices that are hard to undo later. The bigger the project, the heavier those cons weigh.

Why do vibe-coded projects fail?

Because the visible part is done fast and the invisible part is missing. Login, permissions, backups, monitoring and error handling only come up once there are real users. On top of that, a model doesn't see the whole codebase at once, so a fix in one place can break something in another. Without tests and without anyone who knows the code, every change becomes a gamble.

Does vibe coding actually work?

Yes, for what it promises: getting something working fast without programming. For a demo, a prototype or an internal tool it often works surprisingly well. It works less well when the result has to run for years, be secure and be maintained by other people.

Is vibe coding safe?

Not by default. AI models regularly write code with open databases, API keys in the frontend or routes without permission checks. For something that only runs on your own laptop that hardly matters. Once personal data or payments are involved, someone who can read code should do a security check.

Should I throw away my vibe-coded app?

Usually not. A vibe-coded app can often be hardened: close the security holes first, then add tests, then sort out the deploy and monitoring. Rebuilding is only needed when the foundation is so messy that every repair costs more than starting over. An audit shows which of the two it is.

Not sure your vibe-coded app is safe?

A senior developer reads your code, finds the holes and tells you honestly whether hardening or rebuilding is the smarter route.

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