Over the past few months, Vibe coding has been gaining serious traction—and I couldn’t resist diving in myself. I’ve been using AI coding assistants for a while, but I wanted to go deeper and really test what these tools can do in a realistic, end-to-end software development project.

So, I spent the last month building a full-featured ecommerce web and mobile app using some of the most talked-about Vibe coding platforms: Cursor, Windsurf, Lovable, Bolt, and Replit. It was a fun and empowering journey—there’s a real sense of accomplishment in being able to build software applications on your own. I also learned that working with the current generation of tools definitely requires a good deal of patience.

In this blog, I’ll walk you through:

• My experience building and deploying the applications
• What worked, what didn’t, and what broke halfway 😅
• How each tool stacks up in terms of usability, flexibility, and reliability
• Whether tools like these mean we still need software engineers (spoiler: yes—but it’s complicated)
• Where I think this whole Vibe coding trend is heading next

🌍 Coding Assistant Landscape: Then vs Now

AI coding assistants have come a long way. Here’s a quick look at how things evolved:

⏰ The Old School

• Classic autocomplete tools like IntelliSense or TabNine helped speed up typing but weren’t context-aware.
• Low-code/no-code platforms (e.g., Bubble, Wix, Zapier) let users drag and drop components, but required scripting for anything complex.

🧠 The New Era: Vibe Coding

• Powered by LLMs (Large Language Models)
• Can write, refactor, debug, and deploy apps using natural language queries
• Opens the door for non-developers to build apps
• Empowers developers to skip boilerplate and focus on design, logic, and systems thinking

💡 What is Vibe Coding?

Vibe coding refers to using AI-powered tools to build software via natural language prompts, mixed with lightweight manual coding. It’s all about staying in the flow and letting the assistant do the heavy lifting.

💡 The Experiment

Although I started my career as a developer, I haven’t been actively coding in the last decade. Instead, I’ve focused on architecture, reviews, testing, and product design. That said, I wanted to push these Vibe tools beyond simple demos or prototypes.

So, I picked a moderately complex use case: an Ecommerce application with a web frontend and mobile app, complete with backend, auth, payment, and roles.

✨ Features Implemented

- User authentication (sign-up, login, password reset, Google login)
- Roles: Admin, Seller, Customer
- Admin: manage users, view orders, seller capabilities
- Seller: add products
- Customer: browse catalog, filter/sort, add to cart, checkout
- Order history
- Payment integration with Razorpay

🚀 Tech Stack Used

Frontend: React
Backend: Node.js + Express
Database: MongoDB
Deployment: Vercel / Render / Netlify depending on tool

🏗️ Environments

- Web app
- Mobile app (via Expo)
- Both local and production deployments

🔧 Tool-by-Tool Breakdown

Each tool was tested with the same requirements and judged based on ease of use, flexibility, ability to debug, and ability to deploy real features.

🧪 Cursor

🛠️ Plan: Paid ($20)

💻 Used With: MongoDB Atlas, Render/Vercel for deployment, Claude 3.7 model

✅ Highlights:

• Full tech stack flexibility
• Supports both web and mobile
• Git & database migration support
• Wrote unit tests and debugged APIs
• Workflow suits developers

⚠️ Challenges:

• Terminal tracking is weak
• Frequent application crashes
• Manual debugging needed

📦 Artifacts:

• Web application (First access needs 30 seconds as free version of vercel needs warm up)
  • seller (seller@example.com / seller123)
  • customer (customer@example.com / customer123)
• Mobile app (Needs expo installed to run)
• Code for web application
• Code for mobile application

Windsurf

🛠️ Plan: Free and Paid version

💻 Used With: Claude 3.7 & Gemini, Vercel/Render for cloud, Cloudinary for images

✅ Highlights:

• Better terminal/session management
• Console log debugging is stronger

⚠️ Challenges:

• Hard to course-correct from incorrect assumptions
• Hit credit limits fast (Ran out of credits with paid version in 3 days)

📦 Artifacts:

• Web application (Partial app, first access needs 30 seconds as free version of vercel needs warmup)
• Code for web application

⚡ Bolt

🛠️ Plan: Free

💻 Used With: React + Vite, Supabase, Netlify

✅ Highlights:

• Blazing fast startup because it runs as web container
• Fully in-browser

⚠️ Challenges:

• Can’t run backend services (e.g., Express, MongoDB) because of running as web container
• Not suitable for full-stack use cases

📦 Artifacts:

• Incomplete app prototype (Ran out of free credits)

😍 Lovable

🛠️ Plan: Free and then Paid ($20)

💻 Used With: React + Supabase, auto-deploy on Lovable Cloud

✅ Highlights:

• Very easy to use
• Seamless production deployment

⚠️ Challenges:

• Slower code generation speed

📦 Artifacts:

• Web application 
  • user(customer1@example.com, 123456), seller(seller@example.com, 123456)
• Code

🛠️ Replit

🛠️ Plan: Free

💻 Used With: Ghostwriter AI, browser IDE, MongoDB Atlas

✅ Highlights:

• Easy to set up
• Great for fast testing

⚠️ Challenges:

• Cloud-only with less system-level flexibility
• Not ideal for large production apps

📦 Artifacts:

• Did not complete(ran out of free credits)

📊 Tool Comparison Snapshot

🧠 My Take: Cursor gives you the most power; Lovable gives you the most convenience.

❌ What Needs Work

🛠️ Debugging:

Most tools still rely on you reading console logs and piecing things together manually. (My pick: Use Operator framework to understand what’s happening in browser and fix issues automatically)

🐌 Speed:

Long wait times and retries can break the flow.

🧩 Fragility:

Small changes can break other parts of the app. There’s no real “awareness” of architectural dependencies.

📐 Lack of modularity:

Encouraging reusable design and clean code still needs a human architect.

📘 Pro Tips: Making Vibe Coding Work

📋 Define clear requirements

Roles, pages, workflows, error states — lay it all out before prompting.

🧭 Use guardrails (rules/constraints)

Many tools let you enforce language, style, and folder structure.

🎯 Stick to common stacks

React, Node, Python, SQL — that's where LLMs shine.

💡 Use models wisely

Claude 3.7 was the most consistent for me, especially on multi-step flows. Experiment with models and find the best one for your use case.

🧪 Debug like a dev

Logs > terminal > DB traces. Be ready to dive in.

🔄 When stuck, reboot

Sometimes starting fresh saves more time than untangling broken AI logic. Keep regular checkpoints to go back to stable point. 

🧠 Is Software Engineering Dead?

Nope. But it’s definitely shifting.

🧠 What Vibe Coding Does Well:

• Speeds up boilerplate
• Empowers solo builders
• Makes prototyping fast

🚧 What It Still Needs Help With:

• Scaling apps
• Clean architectures
• Advanced debugging
• Enhancing existing production apps

🧑‍💻 Developers won’t disappear. They’ll evolve. The future engineer:

• Uses AI to generate & validate code fast
• Designs smart systems
• Oversees quality, reusability, and security

💬 “It’s not about coding less. It’s about coding smarter.”