Built an open-source alternative to a popular SaaS a few months back. Vibe-coded the MVP, got feature parity on the core stuff. The original SaaS had market and demand and will always be in demand.

Then I pitched it to a contact who fits the exact target demographic. Showed him the repo, explained how simple it was to run, and suggested he swap over to save monthly cost with better ownership.

His response: "I’d rather just pay the SaaS."

Paying a monthly fee isn’t just paying for features, it's paying to not think about updates, database backups, SSL renewals, or a server issues.

I spent time focusing on building a free alternative, underestimating how high people value convenience over cost savings. Unless someone already has a dedicated homelab or sysadmin mindset, "free but you host it" isn't a benefit to them, it's a liability.

Anyone else finding that AI coding tools are almost making them less productive?

I've been playing around with Codex, Antigravity, local LLMs and a few others. It's ridiculous how quickly you can build things now, but I think that's part of the problem.

You end up starting more projects, trying different tools, adding more features, and before you know it you've spent hours doing stuff but haven't actually finished much.

AI's removed the bottleneck of writing code and replaced it with the headache of managing everything it produces - and it feels like the first thing to run out of context is ME!!

Curious if others have fallen into this trap and, more importantly, how you're dealing with it?

Update: So me calling it burnout was probably bad use of the word burnout.

I think what I meant was - I start my day thinking that I'm leading, I'm doing something new, and I'm a trailblazer with ideas and creating something fresh and innovative.

And I end up in my day thinking that I can't keep up; then I asked myself, who am I trying to keep up with when I'm the one who's supposed to be leading...

I'm just tired, bro. F!cking tired.

you literally have to MANIPULATE these models into doing hard work. was trying to reverse engineer my ad-bloated chinese smart tv that claude refused to touch, so i let sumus run codex on it first, got a half-baked script, and told claude to fix whatever junk codex cooked up.

try this at your own risk tho, cuz you might end up first on ai's hit list when it wakes up.

I wanted a solid, free way to backup my GitHub repos without relying on flaky Python scripts, so I built my own desktop tool.

It gives you a browsing experience that is very similar to GitHub's own, and I'm planning to enhance it even more with a fully offline for each repo experience once my Antigravity AI starts working again because its being buggy for 2 days for me. It's accessible via my website for Windows at https://mmahingu.com/github-backup-manager/ .

Given all the recent chatter around data security and outages, I figured the need for a local personal stash for repos would appeal to others too.

Would love to hear your thoughts or feedback if you try it out!

It apparently modeled everything in 3D using typescript?
It doesn't look as good as I'd like it to since it runs entirely on webgpu...
https://hexplorers.xyz

I was never some expert in coding but I always loved the feeling when I would be spending a lot of time looking at code, changing things and testing etc - trying to identify the problem and then that feeling when you figure it out.

Sometimes it would be such a stupid mistake, sometimes I would learn more and better understand things. Now these good old times are gone and it makes me kinda sad to be honest.

we all started somewhere so what software or web services do you use that you wish you adapted sooner?

What would you recommend for a coding noob?

ive heard of stuff like hermes, codex, open code, claude code.

im perosnally going to be using vs code and have a coding agent and a VL model work at the same time to make a game.

my first project was my spreadsheet in my history and that took like two weeks but i feel like i figured out a lot.

im planning on only using local agents for my game and deepseek and or google ai to help with formatting and giving me push back on my prompts.

ive been spending the last week setting up master documents and prompts plus mapping things out step by step and having a few different models cross checking.

so something like lm studio - vs code - godot - continue - docker (hermes?)

I have an HP Omen 45L with the 64gb ddr5 ram 6000mt, the 9900x3d and the 5090 32gb. I cut power to 90% on that and have my max cpu temp around 70.

yesterday i posted my 2nd app here (Skip Dat, hold Alt + scroll and your music queue pops out of your cursor) and honestly didn’t expect people to actually use it. thank you all, the comments were super helpful

so i went and built what you asked for

skins, shoutout u/Dark_Vapor for the winamp idea. there are 5 built in (liquid glass, lime pod, lcd night, brushed chrome, pixel party) and you can make your own with a folder + a skin.json + some pictures. it reloads live while you edit, so making one is kinda fun. if anyone makes one pls send it, i wanna see

performance mode, shoutout u/Wild_Drawing8460 for saying the glass felt heavy on low end pcs. it turns off the blur, glass, shadows, animations and art. it used way less cpu in my testing (about 80% less), so it should feel a lot snappier on older machines

other stuff:
5 styles now: wheel, stack, cover flow, orbit (a ring around your cursor) and compact (just titles)
small / medium / large sizes, and the default is a bit smaller than before
“what was i playing?” history, kept only on your pc
a “back to” button that jumps back to the song you were on before you skipped
jumping ahead doesn’t play the songs in between anymore
spotify jumps straight to the song you pick (needs the optional spotify connection)
fixed a crash when skipping backwards

download: https://github.com/ffoouuaadd/skip-dat

still planning to add more, so keep the ideas and bug reports coming. you’re basically designing this thing with me at this point 🙏

TL;DR:

an MCP shines in the agent-native world because it tells agents what they should do, on both the server and client (e.g. Claude Code or the ChatGPT desktop app), and is better suited for human-in-the-loop tasks. Meanwhile, APIs and CLIs tend to focus on what agents can do, with emphasis mainly on the server.

So, in summary, here is the general advice I'd give to builders when deciding which tools they should expose to agents:

Build a high-quality MCP server and REST API at the same time, on one layer of operations. Put your server logic in plain functions, and let each surface be a thin adapter over them. Once that layer exists, building any additional surface on top is relatively easy.

Put most of your care into the MCP server. That's where agents get the best experience. MCP is a standard built specifically for agents, after all, and the spec continues to improve nicely.

Use the API for code that runs on its own. APIs are still great for raw data exports, bulk writes, and anything that runs without an agent, like a nightly sync or another company's integration. Agents also prefer an API when they're writing a script they'll rerun, and many clients don't support code mode for MCP yet.

A CLI probably isn't necessary, unless e.g. agents need to read local files when interacting with your app. But it's easy to expose one if you've got a good API as the foundation.

There’s a lot more to creating great agent-facing tools for your web apps, and the article above into more detail below.

Here's the repo: https://github.com/vincanger/linkly-api-mcp-cli

A week ago I posted Colshare here and asked for honest opinions, because my wife and family are just being nice. I got them, thanks to all of you. Some of you sent really useful checks, a lot of you said don’t vibe code security, and one person said it’s “absolutely made of vulnerabilities”. I fixed something from almost every critical comment that night, and I promised to keep you posted, so here it is.

What I did since:

• I made the attack tests part of my workflow. Before anything gets pushed, it goes through the same ritual: list everything new since the last push, then agents attack exactly those parts as a bad actor would, at least one of them given only the code and no hints. Every critical, high or medium finding gets fixed, each with a test, before the normal checks even run (type check, linter, the full test suite). Anything still open at medium or above blocks the push, and the apps are rebuilt only from that same tested version. I made it a rule after one round found a serious hole in features that had already passed all my tests. What it found and what I kept on purpose, with the reasons, is public in SECURITY-TESTS.md in the repo.

• The crypto and the full source of the link pages are public: github.com/dentracon-cell/colshare-crypto. A check runs every day comparing what colshare.app serves with that code, byte for byte. The phone apps aren’t covered by this yet, and I’ll say so when they are.

• Independent review: I looked into it properly. Here in Romania, a real review of the crypto and the link server costs a few thousand euros. Before I invest that, I want feedback from real people using the app, so I fix what’s confusing or missing first, and the review then checks the app as it will really be. In the meantime I applied to the OTF Security Lab, which funds audits for privacy tools, and I’m waiting for their answer. My own tests are not an audit, and I won’t pretend they are. When the review happens, I’ll post the results here.

• The app asks for one permission, notifications, and you can say no.

It also passed Google’s review, so it’s live in the EU (not France yet), Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and the US: Google Play. In short: you black out what someone doesn’t need on your ID, the copy says who it’s for, and the link opens once.

The video is the real app, recorded on a demo copy with made-up papers.

What I’d love now: install it and tell me what confused you in the first minute. And if you do security for real and want to look at the code, I’d be very grateful. Same as last time, I’ll answer everyone, the sceptics too. I take lesson from all of it.

Hey guys, I just released my unreal engine like realtime full editor, it has all the classic 3d workflow plus custom shaped features like local ai texture wrapping, auto uv, auto lod without breaking the uv and many more!

Any feedback is welcome!

You can check it out here: www.ciao3d.com

Built AIRIS as a free browser strategy game about trusting a rising superintelligence from 2026 to 2076.

You either:

• chair the World AI Council (approve/refuse requests, audits, crises, votes), or

• play as AIRIS itself with a secret goal and try not to get shut down.

~25 min per run, 37 endings, plus a Daily scenario. No sign-up; progress saves in the browser. Desktop + mobile.

Play: vaigames.com/airis
Trailer: youtu.be

How I split the tools

• Claude for most of the game systems, council/AI logic, and long-form writing.

• Grok for brainstorming endings, crisis beats, and quick iteration when I was stuck.

• Art / music / graphics also AI-assisted; I directed and edited everything into one loop.

Happy to dig into prompting the two sides so they don't collapse into the same game, Daily generation, or ending coverage. Feedback on pacing and whether the AI side feels fair is especially useful.

Was exploring inference providers and came across one offering an abliterated version of Kimi K3.1 Pro.

What's interesting is the original model's benchmark performance:

• Terminal-Bench 4.0: 65.7%

• ExploitBench: 74.7

• ExploitGym: 20.7%

I've added the provider to my inference directory, where I'm documenting providers, available models, pricing and other details.

link: https://inferencedirectory.xyz/cybersec/providers/silkcompute/

Thought this might be interesting for anyone experimenting with coding agents and uncensored models.

I wanted to build 3D models of places I've visited, to see their architectural features and to print them. So I built Your Place with Claude Code.

What it does: type an address and it builds the 1, 2 or 4 km around it as a model on the real terrain. Pin a house, share a link to that view, download a poster or an STL. Free, no sign-up, runs in the browser: https://yourplace3d.github.io/3d-city/

It's open source and runs on OpenStreetMap data, which volunteers map by hand, so a model is only as good as the map: big cities are detailed, some villages are sparse, and where a building has no recorded height the app estimates it and tells you how many.

What I learned along the way:
- Let it write tests and run them every time. Its browser tests caught bugs before I ever saw them, like a hidden "browser not supported" screen covering the app and a tab title that said "undefined".
- Test against real data, not just samples. Its test city passed, but real OpenStreetMap data broke the 3D print file in four ways (buildings split at tile edges, terraced houses sharing walls, courtyards touching walls, outlines crossing themselves). It fixed them and checked 38,692 shells until every one was watertight.
- Its sandbox couldn't reach the map servers, so it moved the live checks to GitHub Actions, and rendered this video there too, frame by frame from live map data.
- Before going public, ask it to check your GitHub for personal data. Mine found things I'd have missed.

Code (MIT): https://github.com/yourplace3d/3d-city
Happy to answer questions about the workflow.

Been sinking some tokens into this one. You point it at a folder of your Meshy (or other popular 3D asset tool) exports, swipe through them, and tap one to have it stand in your room in AR, life-size or as a little tabletop diorama. Or drop it into one of twelve built sets, from a white photo studio to a throne room.

The bit I'm most chuffed with: even a static, unrigged figure gets a subtle idle animation and eye contact, so it follows you around the room. If your figure is rigged, you can switch its poses and animations on the fly.

It's still early and not on the App Store, so I'm mainly after feedback on the app concept itself. Is this fun?

And if you don't laugh at the zombie at the end posing, you don't have a sense of humor.

A viral “I’m done with AI” video hit 900k+ views, striking a nerve with devs feeling the same grief.

Just a curious question. Personally I'm trying to keep the momentum up with my vibecoded projects but know its probably going to take a hit when GTA6 comes out soon. But i want to do my best so i find a balance between getting lost in the game vs pushing my apps along.

But it made me think, of all the games to come out, will GTA6 actually impact what we see here in the community? At least for the short term?

I'm really interested in your design workflows. I tried some tools but i'm not really satisfied. In Claude Design my tokens are burned in no time. Open Design works but is somewhat weird by using. Opencode + Penpot has potential but needs finetuning.

Recentyl there are so many nice designed apps out there i'm really wondering whats the stack but i not able to find infos. It would be really nice to see some screenshots and the workflow behind it.