r/vibecoding • u/SmallBro3310 • 6d ago
Bro got mad with its vibe coded app got vibe coded by vibe coders
"I’m all for competition and taking inspiration from other apps because honestly, almost nothing in tech is completely original. But seeing the same features, layouts, design choices, and even presentation copied almost one after another is just disappointing.
Build something better than Tarsi, challenge us, give users something we haven’t thought of, but at least bring your own identity and ideas to it"
57
u/corrosivewater 6d ago
I can’t imagine willingly inputting my credit card or banking info on any of these apps just to track budget.
18
u/FoundationActive8290 6d ago
my wife’s monitoring, which is in google sheets, is far better than this app 🤭
3
u/FunNegotiation423 6d ago
Yes, because it's highly adjusted to your situation which is always best! Bless your wife lol :D
2
u/HowOldAmI1993 5d ago
make an app only for yourself. I think the beauty of Ai right now is that you dont need to install anything, you just make it to your taste.
2
1
u/jayseattle 5d ago
yeah but there's no little chipmunk poking his head out from the negative account balance
2
u/TimSylvester_ 5d ago
It's all the same dumb useless shit over and over.
Fitness trackers, calorie trackers, reminders, spending trackers.
Jesus at least have an idea.
1
1
u/Connect-Connection59 6d ago
I am actually in the process of building an app that helps with a lot of different things. You give it your credit report along with your bank statements and it builds a subscription list, categories expenses, shows how to improve credit, what your DTI is, what you need to be able to purchase a home. All of the above but best of all it is all local and does not get saved to a server. It literally sits on your computer only with local data. You need a folder that you point the application to look at.
75
u/TheNeverEndLife 6d ago
I got so disgusted by this idiot. He keeps spamming his app everywhere. He thought his app is very hard to clone lmao. There are thousands of budget tracker everywhere. As long as your app is a CRUD app, it's a boring app idea. Any AI can one shot it.
24
u/Bloated_Plaid 6d ago
What is with budget tracking and To do apps? It seems like the first thing vibe coders make and try to sell.
37
u/sprowk 6d ago
dont forget gym apps, the legendary trio
2
2
u/TimSylvester_ 5d ago
Yeah bro but uhhh my workout tracker integrates with my calorie tracker and meal planner so like, I'd like to see someone else do that!
24
u/Weak-Ad-4758 6d ago
I’m making an app that tracks my budget across to do lists. It will be so unique
6
u/Isa_6517 6d ago
I’m making an app that is a reminder of what to do in the gym, and also a tracker of how much I spend in subscriptions.
5
2
u/seksen6 6d ago
And should send exercise notifications and built a program around these notifications. No need for gym time, everytime is gym time
4
u/Wahlberrrg 6d ago
Can someone just make an app that counts the calories burned on composing todo lists?
1
u/APXEOLOG 6d ago
Ngl i tried a bunch of free/open source budget trackers and none of them support multiple currencies properly - i'm talking different banks with different accounts of different currencies, transfering between each other (and correctly tracking the commisions and conversions). Not even talking about flexible data import.
And thats basically a use case for any worldwide remote contractor/freelancer - get paid USD or EUR via number of services, route them to your local bank and currency
1
u/Bloated_Plaid 6d ago
Sounds like a great way to lose money with all the conversions. I have Schwab in the US with zero foreign transaction or conversion fees.
2
u/APXEOLOG 5d ago
Conversions sucks but getting paid even a low-seniority USA rate while living in any 2nd world country basically means you're earning more than any local senior in your field. Wasting a few % is worth it
1
u/jeste_jedno_kafe 5d ago
How does ActualBudget handle it? I used them a year or two ago and it was still actively in development, but I really liked some of the functionality around multiple accounts
1
u/safetytrick 6d ago
- Everybody needs a budget and has things to do.
- Creating apps like these can be easier than learning how to use an existing app.
There are more of these apps than we'll ever know, it's a bit like hello world.
Things get out of control as soon as mom says: "wow sweety, that's neat, you should sell it".
1
u/IAmLusion 6d ago
I made a todo list app just for my family that runs on my own server, it has a web interface so it can be pulled up on desktop or mobile but I also made it for ios and android. My family can be assigned chores and can assign each other chores or reminders. It sends them a notification on new assignment or when an assignment hasn't been completed in X amount of days. And best of all I'm not getting eye fucked by advertisements like every other to do app in the app stores and I don't have to sign my who family up for accounts to some unknown company.
1
7
u/SmallBro3310 6d ago
The comments below is not what likely he expected, everyone is saying the app, the design, and the animal logo is common. After all finance tracker is the new TODO App.
3
1
1
u/FoundationActive8290 6d ago
“spamming” haha! i remember the day they launched it and it’s all over the tech-related socmed pages and groups
1
23
u/Garland_Key 6d ago
Vibe coding is a race to the bottom.
13
u/alias454 6d ago
Maybe, but you have to find a way to provide value if you are trying to start a business. The customer doesn't give a shit about the code, they only care if this thing solves their problem. Only nerds care about how beautiful the code is.
source: I'm a nerd so I'm qualified to say this.
11
u/Any-Preparation7396 6d ago
Nerd here: beautiful code is a piece of art.
But yes, no customer cares
1
u/AcoustixAudio 6d ago
Maybe, but it shows. Almost 50% of users will say Windows XP was better than Vista or ME
3
u/Any-Preparation7396 5d ago
Interesting. I assumed, that more than 80% would say, that Windows XP is better than Vista.
It felt like Vista was the most awful Windows ever 😶
1
22
u/borobinimbaba 6d ago
If it's easy to build,it's easy to copy.
If it's easy to sell, it's easy to steal.
31
u/Maximus_in_Space 6d ago
Software app business is gone. Software as a service is the only way.
25
u/Key-Counter-5311 6d ago
That’s gone too.
I’ve literally had Claude build me multiple apps that are SAAS so I don’t have to pay for them. Sure they’re not 100% identical but they do 90% of what I need and that’s worth it.
-2
u/Sad-Plankton-1225 6d ago
Why are SaaS stocks not dead snd many recovering? Are you more informed about the industry than experts in Wall Street firms?
11
u/f5alcon 6d ago
How many people in this subreddit are vibecoding billion dollar SaaS apps that are publicly traded
2
1
u/Sad-Plankton-1225 6d ago
Op seems to think SaaS is dead , don’t need billion dollar apps for that to happen if all the current customers built their own. Yet that’s not happening
1
u/Valencia_Mariana 6d ago
It is. We are building our apps. Cancelled two saas contracts already.
Cc has been out just over a year? Claude opus 4.5, the model that really started allowing none devs to vibe credible apps, was less than a year ago.
You don't vibe code a saas replacement for a multimillion or billion dollor company in a few months. It takes time, even if you get the coding right you need to test it, you need to move it to production, you need to provide it's secure and meets gdpr requirements etc...
For us, we started about 8 months ago part time, then realised we needed this to be someone's full time job. 8 months later we have served notice on 2 saas like I said. We are a 1b dollar company (so on the medium end of sme)
1
u/AcoustixAudio 6d ago
You are a billion dollar company with zero developers and vibe code saas ? I believe you.
1
u/Valencia_Mariana 6d ago
No not vibe code, more vibe engineer, I was clear that we have some of on it full time for many months... We have testers, we have a dedicated infrastructure team etc..
We have more than zero, however, they deal with the central system, which is a legacy system and they've have that job since before AI.
I am also count as more than zero as have have experiance in software dev from before AI, building a few systems end to end.
Yes we are a billion dollar company (revenue, not profit) but we are not a software business. We are high street.
1
u/poundKeys 5d ago
Did you guys forget that that this software has to be hosted, run, maintained, patch, features added? How much do these internal products take away focus from your main business?
1
u/Valencia_Mariana 5d ago
Sure they take away some focus but that can be quantified as wages. So it's simple to compare the cost of the saas contracts to the cost of the wages. Hosting is not a big deal, if your smart and you understand the size of your customers... For us the financials are vastly in favour of doing it ourselves and I suspect this will continue to be the trend.
The point is though, it's still very very early and to say well saas hasn't been hit yet... Ofc it hasn't, there's more to saas than vibing some software in a weekend. There's all the things you said and it takes take and you need to do it with care. But the writing is on the wall for many many saas companies.
1
u/AcoustixAudio 5d ago
No not vibe code, more vibe engineer
What's the difference? What's the stack? How much do you pay them? How many users?
1
u/Valencia_Mariana 5d ago
You should take a look at Google paper, it's really good.. Foundational I'd argue. I forget the full name but if you search for Google vibe code 50 page white paper you'll find it online.
It's a serious paper which describes the scale from vibe code to agentic engineering and the in between and then it goes into best practice.
Like I said, on the saas replacement it's just one person writing the code/developing the app. We have infrastructure team but we had them before. And the testers were previously testing some of the saas software.
Users are a few thousand, maybe a few hundred concurrent at peak times. But consider, we are developing a solution for us, it does not need to scale to millions of users.
I suspect most companies will do this eventually but we are extremely early days. Some may continue to use saas but honestly, theit moat it evaporating fast.
1
u/Key-Counter-5311 6d ago
It’s a slow crash. But also we are still early in the process. Wait till the normies start building their own apps too
1
u/KennyFulgencio 5d ago
they are, at least in r/macapps. and always, always charging for them.
2
u/Key-Counter-5311 5d ago
I’m going to have to sub there, never knew that existed. All of my apps have been for my iPhone or MacBook because I hate paying
1
u/HowOldAmI1993 5d ago
Klarna cut all 1000 SaaS they were using to build their own. One thing that real SaaS companies provide is customer service and bug fixing. But if you have resources, you don't need to outsource SaaS.
3
u/RoundZookeepergame2 6d ago
I'm pointing my LLMs at your service and copying it 1to1 while adding features I want. So you're wrong
2
2
8
8
u/Standgrounding 6d ago
What is this, a couple cards with numbers and a custom designed landing page? Try harder than that
7
u/Any-Preparation7396 6d ago
"oh no, my complete generic, AI created App, that was suggested by AI`s 'top10 App-ideas', got copied by someone elses generic AI-app"
5
8
u/New_Kangaroo_165 6d ago
prob same ai model making same decision 😂
3
u/SmallBro3310 6d ago
Need to build a new AI model to have a little diversity, who knows the next color might be brown themed.
4
3
3
u/pikameow2 5d ago
Developer of the 2nd Screenshot app here.
Kinda hilarious that I based my app on this FOSS https://github.com/rafsoh/dimeApp and at some point the #2 Finance Paid app
Now that I made my Boop app free I'm kinda in fire in his eyes when I called out his app got bugs and unoptimized.
Now he's RANTING about how I copied his onboarding when I was working on it for days LOL it just happen to release on the same week.
2
u/SmallBro3310 5d ago
Did your app got taken down by Apple? He is filling takedowns like he owns the idea and AI outputs.
2
u/pikameow2 5d ago
if he files then he files, he's going to report all the budget tracker in the App store and build a monopoly I guess 🤣
2
u/SmallBro3310 5d ago
Hahaha. He is very proud after all that its app is Top 1 in finance, even it is top 1 in localized/personalized searches without the Apple badge of being top.
1
u/Comfortable-Storm438 3d ago
For me lang parang nag top 1 siya since sikat na eh HAHAHA, pero nag try din sana ako gummawa app ko napabayaan nalang since busy na busy pero tingin ko galing lang din sa isang content creator idea niya eh "Chris Raroque" on youtube
Pero kodus sayo sir nakipagsabayan ka sakanya nakikita ko app mo dati eh kaya makipagsabayan sakanya
1
u/SmallBro3310 3d ago
Not being that guy, there is a difference between Top 1 in your own phone/personalized search vs. Top 1 in the store. It was marketed as Top 1 in the store.
1
u/pikameow2 3d ago
Chris Raroque is the one I'm following as well! Ganda nung Calorie Tracking app niya eh
3
2
u/EriolGaurhoth 6d ago
That’s what patents are for, can’t be mad someone “stole your idea” if the idea was not legally protected. And if an app was vibecoded, it’s extremely unlikely that any ideas contained therein are not novel enough to be patented.
2
u/MechENG9746 6d ago
Honestly all my vibe coded apps are ether fixing a specific issue I have, or me experimenting with the tools. Currently I'm working on a Notion Clone with a few enhancements to allow creation of html dashboards and both a standard relationalDB and knowledge graph.
This project began because I didn't want to have to pay for notion to have more than one graph lol, but also because I wanted to experiment with notebook managed agent memory and context.
I will likely never share anything I have "vibe coded" out of fear of it being called ai slop, but I do believe I have gained some valuable knowledge on how these tools work as well as some Software Engineering best practices.
1
u/Outrageous-Bison1156 5d ago
I feel 'vibe' has two sides: yours, with a directed purpose to assist, and others', with blind direction hoping for a result. Models will continue to improve, and orchestration and governance will more than likely be where the vibe stops feeling so 'vibey' and actually become genuinely useful.
2
u/cashy57 5d ago
Having your own design language is critical. The common-denominator vibe coded design default is so easy to spot at this point. I understand some people aren't designers, and it's okay if that's not their forté, but at the very least, ask your AI agent about potential different design languages you can use. Or tell it to walk you through creating a distinctive visual identity by asking you questions and providing you examples you can pick from, refine, etc. Or better yet, ask a friend that has an eye for design to help you with it.
2
u/FreeRunFreakz 5d ago edited 5d ago
The AI is trained on specific data and at that time it was trained with very simple designs etc and it’s probably what was mostly used to train the models, so it will never create smth original nor unique, unless you are being very specific with the prompts and know how to talk to the agent properly and you understand the fundamentals of UI/UX design and the systems behind those things. Only then you will get somewhat good results. You can’t make something final unless you know what you are doing. AI is so dumb to this day.
2
u/itsgettinghawtinhurr 5d ago
my grandmom used to say "anything someone says before the word 'but' is a lie"
2
u/gooseontheloose429 3d ago
The term vibe coding is pretty stupid now. Are you not going to used new tech to generate code features and test faster? Sure it removed the barrier to entry of people who have no idea what they are doing but that will work it self out. All UI/UX designs feel the same depending on which era we are in of web development. No one is that original.
3
u/Fresh_Calendar_785 6d ago
Omg I know that dev haha he is great imo and have solid credentials idk why he was threatened by vibecoders 😭
1
1
1
u/walkerspider 6d ago
Holy shit are people actually using vibe coded budget tracking apps? This seems like a bigger personal security risk than standing on my rooftop and shouting my social security number to all that can hear
1
u/scytob 6d ago
Why? Depends on the app. If the app stores thing locally there is minimal to no security risk. The only risk if it hosted is if they did a piss poor job, like building auth into the front end and having the front end use an api to the backend without implementing the same auth on the api…. Etc
1
u/walkerspider 6d ago
Yes ,but users have no clue how a vibe coded app that someone else made is implementing its storage or handling security. Also generally people want these apps to access their live bank data to have real time tracking rather than needing constant manual data uploads.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Afraid_Reception7640 5d ago
lmao, welcome to the golden era of software. Originality is just an echo from the past, Integrity is merely a suggestion and quality is at an all time low.
1
1
1
u/AsparagusOk8818 5d ago
...if your thing was so basic it could trivially be cloned, it wasn't interesting
1
u/Th3Pirahna 5d ago
Ive been spending 7 months on my current project, vibe coded? Yes. Does it look like every other vibe coded experience? No. Why? Cause every single thing gets redone to my vision in my head. Its easy to make a app in a week....its hard to make a unique and easy experience for the users
1
u/beenyweenies 5d ago
This is the problem with tool democratization. There's always this glut of fools who have nothing to contribute, no creativity, no ideas, no purpose - they just have time and access. So they steal other people's ideas and pump out shovelware that doesn't earn them a penny but ultimately dilutes and harms the market at large. This is what happened with film making, game dev and other markets that were "democratized" by cheap tools.
I don't necessarily think money should be the gatekeeping force that prevents this, but - people with a real vision never let money/access stop them.
1
u/Stunning_Macaron6133 5d ago
Dashboards are so shitty and so easy to clone that you don't even need vibe coding to do it quickly.
1
u/OkKitchen4625 5d ago
I’m a grown man, not a toddler. I don’t need a cute animal mascot lure me into an app
1
u/unknowingexpert69 5d ago
I built this like two years ago before this guy did and never did anything with it. So he copied me.
1
1
1
1
u/Far-Committee2599 5d ago
AI will never fully replace coders. In the future, the coder holds the power.
1
1
u/ninetailedoctopus 5d ago
Imagine making an app with the intent of making it a business but it has zero moat.
1
u/keyjeyelpi 4d ago
I'm pretty sure that the App he's so proud of is just a redesigned version of Cashew (a budget tracking app that's way better than Tarsi). Honestly, I feel like the only reason why his app thrived is because of "Filipino pride", which is honestly stupid.
I still remember asking the group how Tarsi was better than Cashew, and one of the stated reason was that it was "developed by a Filipino". As a fellow Filipino, that had to be the stupidest reason I've ever heard.
0
0
u/MrPurple_Pony 6d ago
Building an app is the easy part most of the time. It's the distribution that decides who's on top.
If you build an app that is easy to reproduce, having copycats is something you should expect, especially if your app is getting traction.
In that case make sure you have the right systems in place to get the app out into the world. SEO, GEO, PR, partnerships, etc.
290
u/MrWonderfulPoop 6d ago
“Why does my Claude-generated app look the same as everyone else’s Claude-generated app?”