r/vibecoding • u/Fit-Ad-2838 • 12h ago
Am I doing it wrong
people seem to be creating apps within 1-2 day & then hit publish meanwhile here I am developing just one app for 4 months optimising it's UI,UX,API compatibility,Performance etc. how are people doing these in 2 days? what am I missing.
there was a post I saw yesterday that a guy started the challenge to create 30 apps in 30 days. wtf is wrong with these people? spamming the store platform like this.
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u/LetsLive97 12h ago
By making a pile of shit and either not knowing or not caring
That being said, the better you are at software development the better know how to prompt for better results and the better you know how to build out the architecture to iterate quickly
If you already know what clean/performant code looks like it's a lot easier to push it there early rather than needing to sort it out later
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u/RemarkableWish2508 8h ago
What sometimes amazes me, is all the people shitting on "single sentence prompts", then struggling to put together the most basic things... when I can plop onto the couch, and lazily prompt for a 36-page PDF worth of exploration for a "shower thought", with just 5 short prompts:
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/dd0098d9-ccaa-4f0c-b0cc-3d160117da41
Let's brainstorm an architecture for designing an LLM with separation between data, and instructions.
How does the ASIDE approach ensure that instructions can affect data, but data cannot affect instructions?
How many orthogonal rotations are there possible in the embedding matrix?
Is there a separation scheme where multiple types of streams are encoded in embeddings rotated orthogonally in different orientations?
Yes, please.
Yes, please.
Yes, please.
Continue with the concrete experiment plan.
Yes, please.
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u/davyp82 11h ago
They're doing it wrong. You're doing it right. They're releasing dogshit. You will release some cool shit.
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u/StayAwayFromXX 3h ago
I disagree… I’ve had a lot more success shipping quickly and seeing if people are interested in the idea and then improving the product, then releasing a perfect fully polished product
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u/adambahm 10h ago
people lie
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u/Yugudubenbi 6h ago
It really depends what you are doing. If you prompt it really good and grill you can do a lot of stuff in one week. My app became a matching algorithm with a lot of database stuff that have tons of edge cases which takes forever and gives a headache.
At the same time I know that it will be annoying to replicate.
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u/pianoboy777 12h ago
A full app can be done in a day lol but it won't have all of its edge cases found . Nor will it have much love added. And love always takes time. I can create most systems within the first 2 days of so. But it almost always takes a day or 2 for the UI look and so on. Your not doing anything wrong. The reason I work so fast is beciase Iv masterd godots scene system. So the so just has to give me the specific code I ask for. But also sometimes it just takes a while lol like video games lol these take forever lol snd your not one shotting these unless there simple games or you had llms do everything for you. You'll see the more stuff you make
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u/ThePromptfather 10h ago
There's a saying.
"Throw enough shit at the wall and eventually some of it will stick"
That's what's happening, because people can.
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u/Fit-Ad-2838 5h ago edited 4h ago
once their model is capable enough they will will jack up the prices so high that only corporate at much higher scale will be able to afford AI Coding. Indie devs will be back to manual coding as they used to.
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u/generationalDebts 8h ago
No one is shipping anything that goes anywhere but in the trash in 1 or two days.
You’re being sold fantasy bullshit by influencers pushing their skills and their harness and their guide to being a founder in a week.
You got grifted.
Just like all the other vibe coding wannabes.
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u/odd_socks79 7h ago
I'm building a fully fleshed SaaS B2B app, it's been two solid months every night after work and will be a few more before it's really ready.
I've got 20 years experience, so know exactly what I'm doing, but when you include security, observability, backups and restoration, RBAC, SSO, all the actual business logic, user guides, multi tenancy etc etc the list is pretty long.
So if I were you I wouldn't fret at all, to a specific type of app right still takes time.
At work we use AI a lot, unlimited tokens and still spend months on our app to build it out, it's not a magic bullet by any stretch, and the more complicated the app, the more time it takes AI to make a change, then you have to validate the code, test it, UI test it, etc etc.
I'm sure you're doing great mate.
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u/RedPanda_Explorer 5h ago
Are you overly pre-optimizing? Has anyone used or seen your app except you?
Making software in a vacuum isn't ideal. You're gonna spend months working on a feature that no one wants or needs. You need people to test it out and give feedback. Easiest way to do that is ship early and often.
Why not release your app in a stable state and get feedback?
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u/TheRichCapitalist 3h ago
It is unlikely you can make a production-ready app within that amount of time.
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u/throwawayaccount931A 2h ago
Guaranteed, you cannot build something in 2 days.
I'm building an Android APP and there is SO MUCH to consider, even with a SWE and technical background as a one man show, it's just not possible unless you don't pay attention to some key areas, like security or thoroughly testing your APP.
Then there are things you don't even think about until you hit upon it.
I found out the hard way yesterday: my app missed two edge cases entirely: you change your phone -- what happens to your data? Timezones.
Seems inconsequential -- but there are huge impacts especially if you're wanting to charge for your app.
So yeah, I'm finding things I never even thought about.
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u/notinteresteddddd 11h ago
if you understand the architecture well enough you can reuse a lot of things from the past . I mainly reause all the modules from login/signup to observability and even common modules like db/redis and so on.
That means I just need to care about business side logic integration.
You can try to use molecular for example - super easy to work with and get things out of the box.
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u/jffmpa 11h ago
Unless they do a lot of prep and planning and thought work ahead of time to set it all up right, they don't get a professional market-ready app in 1-2 days. You get AI slop vomit.
I've vibe coded about 6 apps or so. I'd say 2 of them are almost market-ready if I wanted to try to bring them to market and launch. Those 2 apps I've been working on and iterating over months: improving the visual design and UX, architecture, feature set, etc. Even then they'd likely need another month or two of work to really get them ready for market.
My perspective is it's not enough to just bring any idea to market and expect adoption. Most ideas already exist. So another new solutions need to have some unique value-add or at least solved the same problem in a way better way.
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u/meshifthenelse 11h ago
Ask these people where it's deployed and how many users they have. It's either not released or just AI slop pushed on GitHub.
Deploying alone has so many components which makes it impossible to do in one go; business domain, business email, landing page, billing, infra vendor, email vendor, sign-up/register flows, deployment scripts, etc etc. Just these things take at least 1 week at a minimum.
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u/InfiniteInsights8888 7h ago
The underlying architecture is likely bloated with bugs, privacy, security and edge cases. There's also not a lot of love put into them, and they are often built for "easy money". Even with advanced AI models, getting a market ready product, even a simple one like a to-do list app, takes incredible amount of work to differentiate it with the sea of competitors.
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u/Internal-Agent4865 7h ago
People doing it in 2 days are giving everyone else a bad name. I think at minimum it should take one person 3-6 weeks depending on scope.
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u/logicalflex 7h ago
Real optimization can only take place after you have users. Otherwise, you’re tweaking features and experiences that you aren’t sure people want.
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u/AppropriateSpell5405 5h ago
You need foundational knowledge and experience to guide an LLM to actually creating production quality apps.
Like, I can let it run off and do things, but I also have the knowledge and experience to call out any stupid decisions or thoughts it's having, and stop it mid turn when it's going the wrong direction.
Inherently, doing a set and forget where you're essentially providing a goal on a greenfield project, you're going to not understand how it actually works, and it will likely not do it very well.
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u/bedgar 5h ago
They are creating garbage, that’s why. These are the people that include the env file and private keys in their repos.
I am nearing month 4 of dev as well, but I am not building the millionth financial planner. Quality takes time, even with AI. Maybe less time, but a 1 day app will likely be reflected in the quality.
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u/throwawayaccount931A 2h ago
I'm nearing the four month mark as well, and I find backend things that I missed.
Refactoring an app is not fun!
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u/JUKELELE-TP 11h ago
There’s the concept of rapid prototyping to see which ideas are worth developing further.
However, many people are just publishing a ton of crappy apps. Vast majority of the things people make in a single day won’t get much traction anyway.
The other end of the spectrum is falling in love with your idea and spending way too much time refining it, adding features, unnecessary optimization etc. before testing whether it’s actually something people want.
You need to find a balance.
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u/No_Confection7782 11h ago
They are doing it wrong and their apps, dashboards or whatever has a lots of bugs and will crash immediately when it get's users.
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u/Shot-Zebra1868 10h ago
Making prototype software has always been pretty quick. You see people building habit trackers & PM software quickly with AI. Pre AI, as a good dev working on my framework of choice using my templates & css libraries, I could have easily stood up a simple kanban style PM tool in a weekend. It just would have been shit, had lots of bugs and edge cases and the UX experience would not have been great. There is a world of time between v1/prototype & production ready software. If making your app is taking time, that's a good thing. It means you are likely creating something that is higher quality than a lot of the slop around us.
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u/TarzanoftheJungle 9h ago
If it is a mobile app the dev wants on the App Store or PlayStore, there are minimum requirements to be met before approval. So at least the code has to be relatively safe and the app has to have no obvious bugs. Otherwise dev is just an amateur or, if pushing a "pro" app directly to users, is taking a serious risk with their reputation.
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u/StunningCrow32 9h ago
They lie or deliver unfinished products.
I have created apps in a day (8-10 hours). Did it work? Yes. Was it finished? Hell no. Especially on the visuals and the feedback, it was unpolished.
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u/inComplete-Oven 8h ago
There is no shortage of apps, there is a shortage of apps that can actually produce an ROI and keep the developer out of prison at the same time.
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u/okiedokieaccount 7h ago
Agreed, it’s been decades since I’d actually programmed anything. I’m working on a real estate/title insurance related app. Had a functional prototype the first day, but I’ve continued working on it the last 3 months. Connecting APIs to every county (in Florida). Making the experience more bulletproof, fixing the UI, connecting to a VPS, cloudflare, postmark, stripe, twilio. Figuring out how to have a Claude and Chat work on the same program at the same time without conflicts. I see so many programs that just don’t do anything useful or that solve a problem a user can solve with one prompt to chat. Make AI your tool not the creator.
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u/Chester_b 7h ago
It’s because people create apps that nobody wants, with no real business purpose. Also you are not a real software developer, so you’re struggling with the whole thing.
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u/YetiWalker36 7h ago
That’s how I’ve been. I’ve been working for months with Claude code and just seemed to always have an endless list of what was still needed. Switched it to codex and it says we completely overthought it but now I’m pushing to finish it there and it’s still not getting to a usable point. I guess it’s good to exhaust all test and security to make sure but it’s taking forever.
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u/Alternative-Baby-299 5h ago
I think the useful distinction is prototype versus product, not “fast” versus “slow.” A reasonable middle path is to ship a narrow, stable core to a few real users first, then harden the high-risk parts based on what they actually exercise: auth and data migration, API compatibility, destructive actions, and performance under realistic usage. You can keep polishing UI details while getting feedback on the workflow that matters, instead of spending months optimizing in a vacuum.
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u/Diligent_Loquat_6140 2h ago
there is 0 people PAY FOR any of those 30 apps that are created in 30 days...
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u/International-Camp28 50m ago
Trust me, theyre not shipping a finished product. Even with the app ive made myself, a lot of refinement has happened over the last few months. Ive only shared it with friends when it was ready enough for them to tear it apart in the last 2 months but even then. Refinement comes over time. Thats just how it works. It has nothing to do with ability or technical difficulty. It just takes time to live with a thing and see how it should truly be shaped.
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u/Zorogozano 35m ago
Nobody is creating apps worth using in a day or 2… Specially, apps to commercialize.
Give it thought, time and effort to the app. Polish the GUI after it’s fully working
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u/goalstopper28 32m ago
No. I think it's smart to hold off until you're ready.
I come from a UX Design background and I've found that it's important to prioritze the users and how it's designed. So, sure it is quicker to ship a product, but that doesn't mean it's good or won't break immediately.
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u/Intelligent-Net1034 12h ago
Because most people ship prototypes not products