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We've seen plenty of examples of apps successfully vibe coded by non technical people, including apps making real revenue. Your friend could start with telling

by coder-3 2mo ago

We've seen plenty of examples of apps successfully vibe coded by non technical people, including apps making real revenue. Your friend could start with telling the LLM that they are a non technical person who wants to make an app and it will explain all the successive steps.

roncesvalles 2mo ago
>We've seen plenty of examples of apps successfully vibe coded by non technical people, including apps making real revenue. Have we? Or is this just something that people say now, without citation?
- colonelspace 2mo ago
  .
  - jojobas 2mo ago
    That was kinda harnessed and prompted by a team of security experts, so there's that.
- threatofrain 2mo ago
  I’m afraid this isn’t surprising anymore.
- fragmede 2mo ago
  Plinq. Plinq was made on Lovable, https://www.aieatingtheworld.com/articles/non-technical-founder-lovable-app-builder-success-story https://www.aieatingtheworld.com/articles/non-technical-foun... Couple more on https://buildthedamnthing.com/resources/articles/case-studies-vibe-coding-builder https://buildthedamnthing.com/resources/articles/case-studie...
  - shepherdjerred 2mo ago
    Wow, I am not sure that I want my safety app to be videcoded by someone without experience
  - tmikaeld 2mo ago
    The problem with lovable, from someone with insider knowledge, is that many of the apps existed even before appearing there and where ported to the platform to ride the hype wave.
  - mikasisiki 2mo ago
    I don’t think we’re talking about this kind of website.
- mettamage 2mo ago
  A friend of mine, non-technical, is not making money with his apps. But he's creating a street fighter like game. Just for fun. So there's that. He can't exactly release it because he uses a lot of copyrighted stuff. It's also meant only for himself. Though, I've been asking if I can play it, it looks fun.
  - 0xffff2 2mo ago
    I think we desperately need to start differentiating between "is creating" and "has created". I have a couple of "am creating" projects too, but their proximity to "have created" is directly proportional to how much effort and expertise _I_ am bringing, not so much related to the AI's contribution.
    - NichoPaolucci 2mo ago
      I run into this quite a bit. We have users generating MANY apps at our small company (30 FTE), entirely with Claude. It's great to see people mess around and tinker. It's NOT great to see someone with a GH repo that has 750+ commits for what would be MAYBE 1 week of a developers time. SO these are non-developers now spending hours and hours working on software that is probably going to get thrown out. We're in this spot where we don't know when to cut our losses on projects like this. (Is it even viable as production software? Does it currrently do what it's supposed to, or are they adding new features? Is there a return on continued development efforts?) None of these apps they have built are seeing any major usage, and I don't think a single one is what I would call "done" (There was a gold rush stage at the beginning of 2026 where senior leadership wanted everyone to spend some time messing around with Claude). Unfortunately, they never told anyone when to stop messing around with Claude, so the ROI is ever diminishing.
    - mettamage 2mo ago
      Update: he's done with it now. It's quite a fun game. He has some game balancing to do still as I button mashed through the 2D fighting game.
- wongarsu 2mo ago
  Maybe people don't cite specific apps because they like their jobs, and outing apps as vibe-coded is still seen as negative I personally know of two completely vibe-coded large apps in my professional environment. One by a non-technical manager, made to solve his needs, then sold to customers. Initial development went along great, but by now velocity has greatly slowed down. Also took a lot of engineering hours (of actual software developers) to get permission management from "chaotic and ineffective" to passable. It's still worse than what you would have gotten by just using a couple sentences of the right technical language at the start. Deployment is also a bit of a nightmare. All in all, anything beyond the first rollout phase was delayed by months. Honestly it should have stayed as a prototype that then gets rebuilt from the ground up. But still, it is a real app, making real revenue The other example was vibe-coded by a software engineer in his free time. Works pretty well, doesn't have too many bugs. Makes some revenue, but a lot less. Solving manager problems just sells better.
  - RileyJames 2mo ago
    > Honestly it should have stayed as a prototype that then gets rebuilt from the ground up. And that’s a natural process for many products. In the journey from discovery to prototype to MVP to product, it should be rebuilt multiple times. Particularly with LLM’s to assist, the process of rebuilding from a new context and understanding of the desired goal requires even less effort. The hardest part is managing any real users, their expectations, and any data / workflows they’ve come to require from what came before.
  - Shorel 2mo ago
    I vibecoded a Postman/Insomnia API tester program, and I use it everyday at work now. But as another software engineer, I remove myself from that comparison, because the idea is to find out if a non technical person can do the same, that's the definition of vibe coding.
  - chrisjj 2mo ago
    > Maybe people don't cite specific apps because they like their jobs, and outing apps as vibe-coded is still seen as negative ... or IDs apps as cr*p is still seen as negative.
wesleywt 2mo ago
No we haven't

by coder-3 2mo ago

roncesvalles 2mo ago

>We've seen plenty of examples of apps successfully vibe coded by non technical people, including apps making real revenue. Have we? Or is this just something that people say now, without citation?

colonelspace 2mo ago
.
- jojobas 2mo ago
  That was kinda harnessed and prompted by a team of security experts, so there's that.
threatofrain 2mo ago
I’m afraid this isn’t surprising anymore.
fragmede 2mo ago
Plinq. Plinq was made on Lovable, https://www.aieatingtheworld.com/articles/non-technical-founder-lovable-app-builder-success-story https://www.aieatingtheworld.com/articles/non-technical-foun... Couple more on https://buildthedamnthing.com/resources/articles/case-studies-vibe-coding-builder https://buildthedamnthing.com/resources/articles/case-studie...
- shepherdjerred 2mo ago
  Wow, I am not sure that I want my safety app to be videcoded by someone without experience
- tmikaeld 2mo ago
  The problem with lovable, from someone with insider knowledge, is that many of the apps existed even before appearing there and where ported to the platform to ride the hype wave.
- mikasisiki 2mo ago
  I don’t think we’re talking about this kind of website.
mettamage 2mo ago
A friend of mine, non-technical, is not making money with his apps. But he's creating a street fighter like game. Just for fun. So there's that. He can't exactly release it because he uses a lot of copyrighted stuff. It's also meant only for himself. Though, I've been asking if I can play it, it looks fun.
- 0xffff2 2mo ago
  I think we desperately need to start differentiating between "is creating" and "has created". I have a couple of "am creating" projects too, but their proximity to "have created" is directly proportional to how much effort and expertise _I_ am bringing, not so much related to the AI's contribution.
  - NichoPaolucci 2mo ago
    I run into this quite a bit. We have users generating MANY apps at our small company (30 FTE), entirely with Claude. It's great to see people mess around and tinker. It's NOT great to see someone with a GH repo that has 750+ commits for what would be MAYBE 1 week of a developers time. SO these are non-developers now spending hours and hours working on software that is probably going to get thrown out. We're in this spot where we don't know when to cut our losses on projects like this. (Is it even viable as production software? Does it currrently do what it's supposed to, or are they adding new features? Is there a return on continued development efforts?) None of these apps they have built are seeing any major usage, and I don't think a single one is what I would call "done" (There was a gold rush stage at the beginning of 2026 where senior leadership wanted everyone to spend some time messing around with Claude). Unfortunately, they never told anyone when to stop messing around with Claude, so the ROI is ever diminishing.
  - mettamage 2mo ago
    Update: he's done with it now. It's quite a fun game. He has some game balancing to do still as I button mashed through the 2D fighting game.
wongarsu 2mo ago
Maybe people don't cite specific apps because they like their jobs, and outing apps as vibe-coded is still seen as negative I personally know of two completely vibe-coded large apps in my professional environment. One by a non-technical manager, made to solve his needs, then sold to customers. Initial development went along great, but by now velocity has greatly slowed down. Also took a lot of engineering hours (of actual software developers) to get permission management from "chaotic and ineffective" to passable. It's still worse than what you would have gotten by just using a couple sentences of the right technical language at the start. Deployment is also a bit of a nightmare. All in all, anything beyond the first rollout phase was delayed by months. Honestly it should have stayed as a prototype that then gets rebuilt from the ground up. But still, it is a real app, making real revenue The other example was vibe-coded by a software engineer in his free time. Works pretty well, doesn't have too many bugs. Makes some revenue, but a lot less. Solving manager problems just sells better.
- RileyJames 2mo ago
  > Honestly it should have stayed as a prototype that then gets rebuilt from the ground up. And that’s a natural process for many products. In the journey from discovery to prototype to MVP to product, it should be rebuilt multiple times. Particularly with LLM’s to assist, the process of rebuilding from a new context and understanding of the desired goal requires even less effort. The hardest part is managing any real users, their expectations, and any data / workflows they’ve come to require from what came before.
- Shorel 2mo ago
  I vibecoded a Postman/Insomnia API tester program, and I use it everyday at work now. But as another software engineer, I remove myself from that comparison, because the idea is to find out if a non technical person can do the same, that's the definition of vibe coding.
- chrisjj 2mo ago
  > Maybe people don't cite specific apps because they like their jobs, and outing apps as vibe-coded is still seen as negative ... or IDs apps as cr*p is still seen as negative.

wesleywt 2mo ago

No we haven't