What vibe coding changes for your project
For decades, turning an idea into software meant months of development and a serious budget. AI changed that: today an engineer who knows these tools produces in days what used to take weeks. It isn't magic — it's a change of tooling, closer to moving from hand calculation to a spreadsheet.
For you that means three things: seeing your idea take shape very fast (useful to convince, to test, to raise), spending less before the market is validated, and iterating continuously instead of shipping one frozen block. On one condition: keep an engineer at the controls — otherwise the speed is paid back later, in technical debt.
Lovable and Claude Code: my two tools of choice
Lovable
The ideal tool for quickly building a complete web application with a polished interface: pages, database, user accounts. Perfect for a prototype to show or an MVP to ship fast. I reach for it when time to market comes first.
Claude Code
More powerful for deep work: picking up an existing codebase, building complex business logic, automating tasks. This is what I bring out when the project goes beyond the interface and needs real engineering.
You don't have to choose: I often combine both depending on the stage, and add automation (n8n), custom AI (LLM, RAG) and mobile development (React Native) where it's relevant.
Where vibe coding shines — and where it isn't enough
Where it excels
Prototypes, MVPs, internal applications, business tools, automation, fast iteration. Anything that has to exist quickly to be tested and improved. That's where the time saved is spectacular.
Where engineering still rules
Critical systems, heavy volume, sensitive security, complex architectures. AI still accelerates, but the structural decisions have to be made by an engineer. That's exactly what I bring: the speed of AI, framed by experience.
AI writes the code. Experience decides what's right.
Vibe coding lowered the barrier to starting from nothing — but not the barrier to shipping something reliable. And that's the whole trap: it doesn't show. The application seems to work… until the first real customer, the first breach, the first spike in load. The cost of inexperience is simply deferred — and much higher. Here's where an engineer makes the difference.
AI doesn't know your business
It generates generic code. An engineer translates YOUR constraints, YOUR users, YOUR priorities — that's what makes the product genuinely useful.
AI decides nothing
Architecture, technical choices, security: those decisions follow you for years. AI proposes, it doesn't choose. Someone has to call it.
AI doesn't see its own holes
It produces code that looks like it works. Spotting an injection, an exposed secret or shaky authentication takes an experienced eye.
AI doesn't know what production is
Error handling, edge cases, load, clean deployment: the difference between a demo that impresses and a product you can rely on.
Software either lives, or it rots
A product is never "finished": it evolves, it's maintained, it's secured, it grows with your users. Without care, even good code degrades — stale dependencies, new vulnerabilities, debt piling up. That's why I don't deliver and disappear: staying involved over time is what keeps software an asset instead of turning it into a problem.
With AI, you no longer pay for the typing — it handles that. You pay for judgement. And judgement can't be generated: it's earned.
Vibe coding — your questions
Written by Damien Morattel — IT engineer and web & mobile developer, vibe coding specialist, based in Fribourg, Switzerland. I help startups and SMEs build fast and build well with AI.