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Launch HN: VibeFlow (YC S25) – Web app generator with visual, editable workflows
Hi HN! We’re Alessia and Elia, the founders of VibeFlow (https://vibeflow.ai https://vibeflow.ai). VibeFlow lets semi-technical people (i.e. people with some technical skill but who are not professional programmers) build full-stack web apps from natural language prompts, while making the underlying business logic clear and editable as a visual workflow. Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CwWd3-b1JI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CwWd3-b1JI.
The problem we’re trying to solve: today, people who want to build apps without coding often have to stitch together multiple tools, e.g. using Lovable for the frontend, n8n for workflows, and Supabase for the database. That creates data silos and leaves builders with fragile apps that break in production, don’t scale, and aren’t safe. We saw YouTube tutorials teaching people how to duct-tape these together just to get a functional app running. As engineers building no-code tools, we realized that people wanted the power of AI-generated UIs but also the ability to see and control their backend workflows and data.
Our solution is to generate the whole app at once, and represent it as a visual workflow. Users describe what they want in English (“I need a chat widget with an AI agent”) and VibeFlow generates both the interface and the logic. That logic shows up as a workflow graph they can edit visually or by giving new instructions.
We use Convex (https://www.convex.dev/ https://www.convex.dev/) as backend. The generation of the backend code is fully deterministic, we map workflow graphs to code templates. This makes deployments predictable and avoids the hallucinated, black-box code you often get from AI.
Workflow representation: the logic is a directed graph where each node can be customized. We currently support CRUD operations and agent components. Any changes to the graph compiles directly back into code, so you always own the underlying logic.
Frontend: generated via AI and directly linked to workflow outputs, so it always stays in sync with the business logic. Changes to the frontend can be made through a chat interface.
Semi-technical builders can create maintainable apps (not opaque “magic”), and technical folks can still inspect the code and architecture. Compared to Bubble/Webflow, the interface is simpler; compared to Zapier, the workflows have an output code; and compared to AI coding assistants, you get an automatic backend plugged in with no black-box.
You can try it here: https://app.vibeflow.ai/ https://app.vibeflow.ai/. The demo video is https://youtu.be/-CwWd3-b1JI https://youtu.be/-CwWd3-b1JI
We'd love to hear from the HN community, whether you're a builder who's struggled with stitching tools together, a developer who's seen the pain points in no-code platforms, or someone curious about where AI-powered app generation is heading - we're eager for your thoughts!
- filipeisho 1y agoSeeing the backend nodes generate feels like magic
- alepeak 1y agoGlad to hear that. We want to make it as logical and white box as possible. Have you tried adding custom behavior after the first generation?
- error404x 1y agoI've been playing around with vibeflow for a while, it's impressive how fast you can go from a prompt to a working full stack app. The visual workflow editor is a game changer.
- alepeak 1y agoAppreciate it! What did you build? What other nodes would be game-changers for you?
- error404x 1y agoI built a small url shortener and also experimented with a map‑based mood tracker. what stood out to me is how quickly I could go from a prompt to a working frontend + backend without boilerplate. For me, the most useful next nodes would be: 1) auth 2) stripe 3) file upload 4) convex action nodes (for more complex workflows)
- pzullo 1y agoWhy did you use convex as backend?
- alepeak 1y agoGreat question! We chose Convex for multiple reasons: – We spin up isolated projects for each user. Convex handles this seamlessly with zero manual setup, while Supabase/Firebase have limitations and manual configuration needed – We abstract backend logic as visual nodes, so Convex's modularity makes it logical to find the right granularity for workflow representation. – Everything is reactive, so UIs and workflows stay in sync without bolting on listeners – Everything is end-to-end TypeScript with transactions by default, so generated code is predictable and maintainable