Why don't I just vibe code the website myself?
Learn the pros and dangers of vibe coding as a non-technical person. Or find out how to delete a production database with a single "make no mistakes" prompt.
Photo by Daniil Komov on Unsplash
AI tools have made it possible for almost anyone to build a website by describing it in plain language. Type a prompt, get a page. So why pay someone to do it?
Because "make it work, make it pretty, make no mistakes" hides a long list of things you'll have to learn sooner or later. You can get great results by vibe coding, but you pay for them in time, in risk, and in focus pulled away from your actual business. Let's walk through what that journey usually looks like.
The rabbit hole starts on day one
Ask an AI to build you a website and it will most likely reach for Next.js, a popular React framework. Great choice, but now you have a project full of files, folders and terms you don't recognise. When something breaks, you're reading code you didn't write and don't fully understand.
Then you need to put it online. The AI will suggest Vercel, because it's easy and has a free plan. What it may not mention: Vercel's free Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use only. A business website needs the paid Pro plan at $20 per user per month, according to Vercel's pricing.
To deploy to Vercel, you'll connect it to Git and GitHub. So now you're learning version control: commits, branches, pushes, and what to do when they go wrong.
And your site needs an address, so welcome to domains and DNS. You'll buy a domain, point records at Vercel, wait for them to propagate, and figure out why it still doesn't work.
None of this is impossible. But you came here to get a website, and you're already four tools deep.
Chasing the wow factor
Your site works, but it looks like every other AI-generated page. You want it to stand out. So you start browsing and discover UI libraries like shadcn/ui and React Bits, full of animated backgrounds, glowing cards and shiny text effects.
This is where it gets dangerous. Each library has its own setup, its own styling rules and its own way of breaking when combined with another one. One effect leads to the next. An afternoon becomes a week of trying things out.
It's easy to drift into the abyss of endless possibilities. There's always one more animation, one more component, one more tweak.
When your website becomes an app
For a simple static site, vibe coding can work well. There's no login, no stored data, and not much that can go seriously wrong.
But businesses grow. Soon you'll want a contact form that sends emails, a newsletter, bookings, customer accounts or online orders. Now your website is an app, and the learning list gets a lot longer:
- A database to store your data. You'll probably land on something like the Supabase free tier, or Prisma connected to a database you also need to set up and host.
- Email sending that actually reaches inboxes instead of spam.
- Authentication: logins, passwords, password resets, sessions.
- Security: keeping API keys out of your code, protecting forms from spam and abuse, and making sure one customer can't see another customer's data.
- Personal data rules: once you store names, emails or phone numbers, GDPR applies to you.
AI can write code for all of this. What it can't do is take responsibility for it. If you don't understand what was generated, you can't tell whether it's safe. And a data leak costs a lot more than a website ever would.
Business owner or vibe coder?
Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
Add it all up: a framework, hosting, Git, domains, UI libraries, databases, email, authentication, security and data protection. That's not "building a website" anymore. That's the first year of a new career.
And that's the real question. Did you start a business to run it, or to become a developer? Every hour spent debugging a deployment or comparing animation libraries is an hour not spent on your customers, your product or your sales.
Yes, you can get great results by vibe coding. But the price is your time, your focus, and the risk of shipping something you can't fully trust. For most business owners, that trade isn't worth it.
If you love the tech side, go for it and enjoy the ride. If you'd rather stay focused on your business, that's what we're here for. Website Refinery builds websites and web and mobile apps, and refines existing ones, so you don't have to learn all of this yourself. Tell us about your project.
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