The Rise of Vibe Coding in Software Development

Think about the last time you visited your favorite coffee shop. Remember how concerned you were about your cup of coffee coming as requested? Just like giving orders and getting them fulfilled, vibe coding is sending an order (prompts) to the waiter (AI) and receiving your properly brewed cup of coffee (code).

Vibe coding is a major trend in software development, especially amongst newbies to programming. This article will explain the benefits and drawbacks of this widely used process and provide a better option for you as a student interested in software development.

Vibe Coding at a Glance

Vibe coding involves prompting AI in natural language to generate code in the specified programming language. There is no doubt that AI finds its application mostly in software development. With tools like GitHub Copilot, DeepSeek, OpenAI Codex, and others, coding and debugging are no longer the nightmare they used to be for software engineers.

Going back to the coffee shop analogy, the waitress takes your order and relates it to the coffee maker back in the kitchen. You are satisfied with the services but would prefer a system where you can order from your house and get it delivered (assuming such an application never existed). You want this application built and customized for your phone, but you barely understand data structures, let alone algorithms, so you pick up your phone and start interacting with an AI via prompts. What you get is a response of codes that can solve the problem when implemented in an integrated development environment (IDE).

Voila! Your coffee shop application is ready for use. It would normally have taken weeks or months to get the entire source code running and working perfectly, but with AI, you can be done in a few hours, especially if you have some fundamental knowledge in programming.

Pros of Vibe Coding

According to Business Insider in February 2025, vibe coding is one of Silicon Valley’s hottest buzzwords. It makes an absolute beginner feel like an expert, simply by prompting AI to do coding tasks. One of the major benefits of vibe coding is that it helps foster creativity by bringing ideas to life in the shortest possible time. For beginners in software development, vibe coding gives room for rapid prototyping, which can be very useful for hackathons and personal projects. This means you can get a basic software application done via vibe coding as long as you can prompt the AI using the appropriate natural language to describe the task.

On the other hand, there’s the popular quote: “A tool is best in the hands of a professional.” For professionals in software development, AI tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Co-pilot are used for code debugging, refactoring, and to address other issues that may arise when coding. To them, vibe coding provides backup or additional help to get work done in the shortest time possible.

Vibe coding also allows software engineers to experiment with different ideas and methods that could eventually lead to better solutions. With the code suggestion features, it is possible to try different solutions for the same problem before finally choosing which works best based on your goal. This has led some professionals to rely largely on AI for corrections.

All of this raises an important question: Can AI replace software engineers?

Cons of Vibe Coding

In software engineering, vibe coding is considered the next “best thing since sliced bread,” but the drawback of vibe coding is quite glaring. For example, it is helpful for simple projects, but not trusted for large projects. For large-scale or critical applications, the chaotic nature of pure vibe coding can result in an unstable and unreliable system, ultimately costing more time in refactoring and debugging than initially saved by skipping structured development.

Remember: displaying codes based on your prompts can be faulty, biased, unethical, or non-standard.

An expert barista cannot be compared to an amateur for obvious reasons. In the same way, a professional software engineer knows when to use an AI tool and when not to. This is because they are well-grounded and experienced in programming logic and not merely pasting code from an AI, which can mess up the codebase.

Also, vibe coding can lead to significant technical debt and maintainability issues in the long run. Without proper planning, documentation, and adherence to established coding standards, the codebase can become disorganized, difficult to understand, and prone to bugs. How do you solve a code error when solely depending on the AI that generated the code? You can end up spending more time debugging the same code, generated due to a lack of foundational knowledge in programming.

The Way Forward: Knowledge + Vibe Coding

Integrating vibe coding with a solid foundation of programming offers the most effective path forward in software development. This hybrid approach leverages the intuitive, creative energy and rapid prototyping capabilities of vibe coding while grounding it in established best practices, architectural principles, and a deep understanding of programming paradigms.

By combining spontaneous exploration with disciplined design, software engineers can produce innovative solutions quickly, ensuring that the resulting code is not only functional and elegant but also maintainable, scalable, and robust for the long term. This balanced methodology fosters both agility and quality, leading to more sustainable and successful projects.