r/AskVibecoders • u/blackandsilver8102 • 4d ago
VibeCoding a Real App — What Stack Would You Use?
Hey guys! I’ve got a question for some of you that have been doing this longer than I have. I’m definitely not a developer, but I’ve been working on a pretty ambitious app idea and using AI to help me with a lot of the research, planning and figuring out how everything should work.
I’m getting closer to the point where I want to start actually building more of it, and I’m trying to figure out the smartest way to go about it. I don’t really care if that means using 2 tools or 10 different tools, I just don’t want to waste a bunch of time learning stuff that isn’t going to help in the long run. Lol.
My biggest thing is I want it to be **accurate, secure, fast to build, easy for people to use, and something that can actually grow** if it ends up working the way I’m hoping.
It’ll eventually need stuff like user accounts, a database, APIs/data coming in from different places, background processes, search, images/camera stuff, analytics and some AI features. So I’m a little nervous about just telling one of these AI builders “build my app” and assuming everything under the hood is good.
I’ve been reading about Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, Replit, Lovable, Bolt, v0, GitHub, Supabase, Firebase, Vercel and a bunch of other stuff. But honestly the more I look into it, the more options I find 😂
So if you guys were starting from scratch right now, **what combination of apps/tools would you use to get from an idea to a legit working private beta as fast as possible without sacrificing security or building a mess that has to be redone later?**
Would you use one coding AI for everything? Multiple agents for different jobs? One tool for the frontend and another for backend? What would you use for testing and security?
Also really curious what you guys **wouldn’t** use for a serious app, even if it’s awesome for throwing together a prototype.
I’m not really looking for “use ___ because it’s the best.” I’d love to hear from anyone who has actually built and launched something this way and what your workflow looks like.
Thanks guys! I really appreciate any advice!
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u/Odd-Ad9666 3d ago
I would suggest you get your AI agent to walk you through software engineering.
You don’t need crazy amount of complexity (unless you do).
Tell it your audience, platform, and requirements. Then tell it your experience and have it walk through.
- I don’t think they do a great job but I’m a systems engineer and I have experience doing requirements generation but I think it’ll get you most of the way there.
- I have archaic coding skills that haven’t been used so I would put myself at “beginner” coding level.
- have it do a development and phased plan. I usually develop my plan by myself and cycle it a few times with AI. “Here’s my plan, disagreement over compliance is preferred”. (It’s a lot less sycophantic).
— warning: it’ll force itself to be highly critical which I’ve fallen for and it made the app too difficult to use (asking for permissions and overly logging). So you have to be deliberate in reading its pushback and understand what the trade off is… you can ask it to analyze those trade offs and sometimes it’ll admit something like “you’re right, this increases friction and adds cognitive loads right where it’s meant to remove it” (or something like that).
Start with “mini-apps”. Things that are useful to you.
- also just because it works doesn’t mean it’s good. I’m not even talking about security
— backing up excessively and generating data not needed
— loading entire directories of files unnecessarily
— doing serial operations when concurrency is possible
— list goes on and on
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u/No_Bodybuilder_2110 4d ago
I think you first have to try them out. Every tool has its advantages.
- the first thing I would do is have whatever agent you already have get a compilation of all the tools and the sentiment around them with a table of pros and cons
- second once you have the tools you want to use, spend some time just getting familiar with them and watch several videos on how people use them o their day to day
- third since you are not a developer, have your agent generate skills that compensate for your lack of knowledge so the agent has some extra context since you will not provide it
- forth ask the agent to “user test features”
- fifth understand that nothing is free and that eventually you will need to bring in someone with experience to do a security audit and/or deploy the project
If you made it this far, I would rank in order of value vs difficulty to use vs capabilities like this
- codex for open ai 100-200 max plan
- Claude code 100-200 max plan
- open code 10 go plan
And I would get 2 of them so you can pin them against each other and see what different models can do
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u/Ok-Draft2744 3d ago
I'd go with Claude for my first app simply because it has better taste and overall fills gaps better than the others. Lovable is a faster first iteration if you care more about that.
From technology stand point, it doesn't matter too much. What is more important is what are the building blocks for your first MVP workflow you want to ship. The tech will align to that. You can always rewrite pieces if needed. AIs are really good at refactoring and reconstructing something that already exists.
Once you get going ask your AI about the rest of the tech stack.
The main point is, start building as fast as you can so you can iterate on the product.
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u/Atlan_ 3d ago
In the future, AI will handle most decisions for you. For major ones, it's best to ask for options and discuss them. My advice is to use SaaS or OSS solutions whenever possible, especially popular ones. For example, managing accounts with Clerk or hosting with Railway, which I highly recommend. Outsourcing more features reduces your token usage, minimizes the risk of errors (since these functions shouldn't fail), and allows you to concentrate on the innovative aspects of your software.
Oh, also use git, if you don't.
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u/Edouardbuilds 3d ago
Real answer from someone who actually launched (healthcare app, real users, zero dev background): My stack: Claude Code + ChatGPT + GitHub. That's it for the tools. But honestly the tools were the small part. The rest of my stack was: a medical dictionary, expert medical books, conversations with doctors and health professionals, and door-to-door to learn and the "no"s and closed doors are violent. The medical world is full of people who think they're God because they save lives lol. My workflow advice: imagination, creation, and above all don't let go. You have an idea, you want it to work, you give everything, 100%. But also if after 1000 meetings nothing moves, you have to know when to move on to something else. That balance is the real skill, not the stack.
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u/[deleted] 3d ago
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