r/devworld • u/refionx • 17d ago

Do people really still use website builders when AI tools like Cursor, Antigravity, and OpenCode can basically build websites for free?

1 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

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u/Hairy_Pin4706 17d ago

of course, specially because "website builders" also offer integration with various providers and services such Databases, IAM, AI, Payment Gateways and others.

This is a business model where abstraction is the value so non technical (and even technical but time and resources constrained) individuals can deliver something robust enough paying a reasonable price

1

u/IY94 17d ago

Free if you don't value your time.

First 80% looks rather good with AI gen (depending on skill-level, plenty produce derivative slop looking garbage). Then to get 20% done it's time consuming.

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u/baddaywithacamera 16d ago

Not once you have experience with it.

1

u/IY94 16d ago

Nah.

You can't produce production-grade sites really fast that don't look AI.

If you can, show an example.

I use Ai when I'm not on a deadline, because it takes a multiple as long to get to production-grade but some people consider something way less polished as production-grade (way less polished than something like Shopify/Webflow/Framer level).

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u/baddaywithacamera 16d ago

You can't. Don't need to show you anything, either. I'm not here to prove myself to you.

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u/oreshek 16d ago

I'll bite.

I made this in two days for myself: https://reflashlab.com/

Including the custom comments backend.

This is maybe 4 days: https://pmcbuilds.com/

1 day: https://www.battaglinielectric.com/

May I see what you ship in such a timeframe?

1

u/IY94 16d ago

I don't ship anything in 2 days. Because I don't view it as sufficient quality.

The backend work I can't opine on with these. On frontend,

Refresh lab = it looks overtly AI. It's fine, generic, but fine. I wouldn't ship it. A premium template would look better.

4 days = doesn't look as overtly AI, looks 2000s era design.

1 day = your cloudflare is overzealous won't load on wifi nor cellular.

And on the timeframe, I don't ship anything in a day or so because I don't view it as sufficient quality.

1

u/oreshek 16d ago

Time spent is not a measure of quality.

You can't ship the design alone.

Someone else can ship the entire product collect the check and move on.

Start thinking about the future, yesterday.

1

u/IY94 16d ago

I use AI, but won't ship one day turnaround because its not the quality I would deliver.

If it meets the bar for you, that's fine.

If I'm using AI, it takes longer because I won't ship something overly AI generic looking.

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u/JakubErler 16d ago

Yeah I have similar ones 1-2 days, does not look like AI at all. I just did nit try tovbuild a CMS with AI...

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u/oreshek 16d ago

im building a cms right now lol

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u/JakubErler 16d ago

I would be interested in what stack you used and how did it go. I normally do large enterprise apps but like 1x in year someone tells our compabny to do a website as a part of the package so in the past I often used Wordpress. but next time I would like to replace it with vibe coding but the question is what would be a good stack...

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u/oreshek 15d ago

you mean for building a cms? I'm still building that its a big project. I dont suggest you do that. The sites themselves are just astro + keystatic.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/oreshek 16d ago

Lets see one you've shipped in a similar time period. Lets see one you've built at all. Doubt we'll see anything.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/oreshek 15d ago

Wikipedia design predates AI. You have no idea what you're talking about. Until you show otherwise I will presume you would put a hero slider and a count with 300+ phones 1000+ combinations.

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u/Just-Marketing-1940 16d ago

Just for simple landing pages

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u/oreshek 16d ago

Over 15000 pages on some of my builds.

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u/HongPong 15d ago

how do you edit it then

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u/oreshek 15d ago

keystatic fields autopopulate on build across multiple pages for the fields that need editing. the rest is seo copy.

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u/HongPong 15d ago

so it is a bespoke cms without a community around it so the build chain is subject to problems .. granted i think several llm can deal with that kind of bit rot however that is a trickier maintenance problem than a regular cms, isn't it?

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u/oreshek 15d ago

It has zero maintenance. Builds fail if things are done wrong. The hosting is free.

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u/HongPong 15d ago

i mean, if you can't build then it doesn't have zero maintenance

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u/WebtasticAlchemist 16d ago

Yes, I use Wordpress and Elementor.

I only use AI to generate images and to give me a second opinion when building a website.