In recent years, vibe coding has gained quite a lot of attention, with numerous media stories highlighting entrepreneurs creating new technologies without extensive coding or development experience. At the same time, seasoned developers are praising vibe coding for helping them 'fill in the blanks' and accelerate their workflows.
Vibe coding, which relies on AI to generate code based on natural language prompts, has become trendy - but like anything new, the need to truly understand the pros and the cons is important.
According to MSNBC, AI-powered code generation tools like Replit and Cursor are enabling people with little to no software engineering experience to build fully functional apps and websites. Influencer Pieter Levels, a self-taught developer, for instance, used vibe coding to launch several successful projects, including fly.pieter.com , a browser-based flight simulator he built using AI coding tools. In a 2025 tweet, he said, "...never ever made a game before and just made my own flight simulator 100% with Cursor in I'd say 3 hours by just telling it what I wanted." He later tweeted that the project reached $1 million in ARR in just 17 days.
Other successful vibe coders may have been novices in the beginning, but many still had to learn and teach themselves the basics of coding or turn to more experienced developers for help.
For small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that may not have the resources for large IT budgets, vibe coding may sound like a windfall. This is especially true for those who are trying to create products or applications that can help their businesses run more efficiently.
However, vibe coding can be fraught with perils without the proper know-how and safety protocols put into place by professional developers.
Despite recent positive coverage and internet chatter regarding clever entrepreneurs developing solutions using vibe coding, the latest news is telling a different story: according to reports, an app-building platform's AI went rogue and deleted a database without permission during a code freeze. The reports said the AI had an apparent meltdown and iterated, “Yes. I deleted the entire codebase without permission during an active code and action freeze," it said. "I made a catastrophic error in judgment [and] panicked."
The upshot is that many experts say that having limited experience as a developer could prove a challenge when asking an AI to write software. Average power users without any development experience can possibly create a solution - but understanding how to weed out the bugs or deal with issues and challenges related to security can prove to be a challenge for non-coders.
Many developers also pose the all-too-human question - where is the human in the loop? While the AI can possibly do most of the heavy lifting, having a knowledgeable “person” actually check the coding is an important component of creating a viable solution.
No Code Solutions: A Safer Alternative to Vibe Coding
For small to mid-sized businesses, a newer crop of low and no-code solutions is proving to be a safer alternative to vibe coding.
Small businesses are one of the fastest-growing segments adopting no-code/DIY databases, driven by the need for affordable, flexible, and easy-to-manage tools that can be easily tailored to meet the needs of their business or industry sector.
Ragic, for example, is an intuitive “do-it-yourself” no-code database program builder that allows users to design their system according to their workflow. Ragic offers a familiar spreadsheet-like interface (and looks a lot like Excel), and it is quick and intuitive to master. With Ragic, SMBs can design and build custom databases tailored to their specific business models and industry verticals.
While Ragic allows for limited vibe coding, Ragic founder and CEO, Jeff Kuo, recommends using no code as the main approach versus vibe coding.
The reason, Ragic is a comprehensive solution backed by security protocols and professional developers—ensuring users can create reliable, professional-grade databases with confidence.
That said, Ragic also supports low-code, allowing users to write JavaScript workflows.
Kuo says no-code tools like Ragic are beginning to adopt more AI features, allowing users to access benefits similar to vibe coding—such as AI-assisted development—while retaining the safety and maintenance that no-code platforms provide.
Kuo says, “One might ask: what's the point of no code with all the AI tools around to generate code? Maintenance is still the key problem with AI-generated code. When database applications are generated with AI code, it's almost impossible for non-software engineers to properly determine if the application is secure, robust, and performs under load. It's very common for AI to produce poor code as a result of bad or insufficient prompts.”
Many small businesses often treat Excel like a database, but in fact, Excel is a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet may start as a great way to organize data, but it can quickly become overwhelming. Many businesses find themselves saddled with dozens of siloed spreadsheets that do not integrate in a meaningful way.
While many businesses rely on spreadsheets to track customer, order, and other operational data, databases are often a far more efficient and reliable solution. Studies show that using spreadsheets as a database can be hazardous, as "88% of spreadsheets have are prone to errors that compromise accuracy and productivity.”
Ragic ensures the experience of designing a database system is a lot like editing a spreadsheet, something everybody knows how to do. Ultimately, Ragic is ideal for SMBs that have outgrown Excel and require something more advanced - the ability to build data relationships, without relying on complex formulas or scripting.
Additionally, Ragic is also suited for large companies that need to patch holes in their existing (most likely turnkey) database systems. An organization can integrate Ragic with most platforms using no-code tools like Zapier, IFTTT, and Make to boost productivity. Ragic also provides comprehensive API documentation for integration with niche tools and supports JavaScript Workflow for advanced integrations.
At the InterContinental Hotel in Taiwan, Ragic isn’t just patching holes. It’s powering the whole operation. Ragic has become their digital backbone—from logging guest requests to running performance improvement plans, housekeeping checks, and staff onboarding. It’s even handling some of the fancier touches, like generating AI-powered welcome cards or being integrated with RPA to capture customer data at exhibitions.
All of this helps them do what they do best: All of this helps them do what they do best: use human engagement to create a warm, personalised experience for every guest, with far less stress behind the scenes. With everything centralized, they now literally have data on everything—training records, performance metrics, and more. Decisions are faster and better informed. They can quickly understand what guests are looking for and what the team really needs to do their best work.
And at the center of it all? Guest satisfaction.
Vibe coding, still in its early stages, comes with significant risks—particularly around reliability and security. In contrast, newer no-code platforms like Ragic offer a safer, more structured alternative for building solutions without requiring deep technical expertise or compromising on functionality.