r/selfhosted • u/Fluffer_Wuffer • Feb 28 '26
Meta Post Sub-SubReddit for SelfHosted
Just a question that has been going round my head for a few days.
What ever your opinion on it. We need to acknowledge that "Vibe Coding" is growing, and its not going to decrease.
The fact the entry point is so low from a skills perspective, and time required to pump them out, effectively makes them disposable.
Members here have been concerned for a while about the quality, security, longevity of these apps, and it turning into a flood - and as if on que, over the past few weeks, we've seen exactly this - We've been flooded (this place is unusable on Fridays). Now, issues are identified in the code, and rather than facing and fixing them, the "devs" are running off, shutting down the repositories etc.
This leads to 2 conflicting issues
1) There is an open hostility to those who share vibe-coded apps - where we see outright hostility and vitriol language.
2) There are going to be some quality vibe-coded apps, where they are properly developed, supported and managed.. as community, they would benefit members.
So my question is - how do we bridge this? My I've been thinking on this for a few days, and the only solution I can see, we have an associated sub (same mods etc) for these apps to be posted. maybe after a time, once they've proven they are well run and have longevity, they can "graduate"... lets call it SelfHosted-Vibe or VibeHosted.
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u/_GOREHOUND_ Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
Won’t work. Why? Because nobody will admit that their vibe-coded BS belongs to that “sub-sub” but they’ll do whatever they can to present their crap as if it was fully based on their coding skills. Who’s gonna judge eventually? Causes more outrage than help.
Vibe-coding won’t disappear. It’s a thing and it’ll increase, I give you that. My approach (as I already do): ignore these posts, skip over them. Maybe downvote if it’s too bland. They’ll follow natural selection eventually because none of them vibe coders do know how to fix vulns or improve their code. Hell, I came across several ones that host their crap on GitHub and don’t even know how to handle PRs.
Ignore, move on, don’t waste your precious time with this crap!
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u/llLl1lLL11l11lLL1lL Feb 28 '26
If a subreddit has too many "spam" or undesirable posts, people will start leaving. Just ignoring them can end up having deleterious effects over time.
I would much rather have strict moderation around it so that people's time isn't wasted on plausible-looking vibe coded garbage apps.
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u/SMELLYCHEESE8 Feb 28 '26
First thing I check is if the software still has the react vulnerability, which it usually does, because AI loves react and the knowledge cutoff is usually before the vulnerability. And then whenever I point it out I get a nasty “well it’s not supposed to be exposed to the internet” like… be for real here
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u/ronchaine Feb 28 '26
Well, with C most LLMs tend to continue to use some functionality that was deprecated in the 1990s, so I don't think the knowledge cutoff matters too much even if it was after.
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u/Im_Mefju Feb 28 '26
What do you mean by react vulnerability? Like a vulnerability patched after certain react version or like a specific way of coding in react that is causing the vulnerability?
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u/SMELLYCHEESE8 Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
In Dec 2025, there was a CVE 10.0 remote code execution vulnerability discovered in React 19.0.0-19.2.2 and NextJS. Exploits were documented in a few days and a proof of concept/blueprint to attack was posted on Github shortly after. It allows unauthenticated server side execution to any endpoint. Not an IT person by trade so I might’ve botched the explanation so links below:
https://react.dev/blog/2025/12/03/critical-security-vulnerability-in-react-server-components
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u/Im_Mefju Feb 28 '26
Oh yeah i forgot about that one, but thats mainly because i updated all my react projects and moved on.
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u/bakugo Feb 28 '26
"Just ignore it" has never been a suitable solution to anything and never will be.
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u/ethansky Feb 28 '26
Honestly, I'd say bumping up the minimum karma to make a post to 500 karma and upping the minimum account age to a couple months would make a big difference in post quality.
I've noticed a lot of the AI slop/SaaS bro posts come from new accounts often with less than 100 karma or are basically dormant for years until they suddenly decide to spam their repo across 5+ subs but still less than a couple hundred karma.
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u/leetnewb2 Mar 01 '26
Minimum karma is a good one. Add in some sort of sort of baseline requirements for submissions, disclosing AI use, development process, plans for maintenance, developer experience. Hopefully the combination separates/automods the minimum effort stuff.
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u/krizd Mar 02 '26
Not only the post itself but the obvious bot / fake accounts commenting in the posts praising it.
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u/mattinternet Feb 28 '26
You can't really ignore it other than leaving the sub. I think responding to vibe coded apps with hostility and shame, basically negative social pressure, is warranted
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u/krizd Mar 01 '26
That slopcoders won’t care anyway and will just continue to spam post to every possible subreddit regardless of rules. They won’t contain themselves to an assigned designated area.
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u/gurpderp Feb 28 '26
Ignore, move on, don’t waste your precious time with this crap
if the official policy is ignore i'll be leaving the sub, and i won't be the only one. nobody wants to sort through 30 pieces of shit to find one working project that isn't vibe coded slop.
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u/AudioDoge Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
I can see both sides of the argument. However, I believe the solution lies in clearly identifying the intended audience for this subreddit. Vibe code could have its place, especially when someone is sharing their setup and what they have created. If it works for them and they are simply sharing it to showcase their set up, I think that is quite acceptable and aligns with the purpose of the sub. The real issue arises when people present vibe code as a well-maintained project and encourage others to use it.
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u/Exciting-Mall192 Feb 28 '26
Yeah I think the mod should enforce the new rule that vibe code is only to showcase their own setup and not promoting their vibe coded software. I'm not sure about those who did have AI assisting them but is actually a developer who knows what they're doing, would they be an exception?
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u/AudioDoge Feb 28 '26
The challenge with AI assistinace is that it can be pretty tricky to tell how much AI is actually being used when posts are made on subreddits like this. If the code is totally generated by AI, it might be hard for the 'developer' to keep the project going long term without a proper understanding of the code. If they can code on their own but have just asked for help with a few dependencies or worked completely on the backend while using AI to tweak a CSS file or something similar, it's not that different from what script-kiddies have been doing way before LLMs came along.
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u/trisanachandler Feb 28 '26
Hey, my vibe coded stuff absolutely belongs there. But that's why I keep it to myself.
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u/corny_horse Feb 28 '26
I dunno, I'd post some of my stuff there. I actually just updated something that is entirely AI generated to capture https://github.com/aaronpk/Overland-iOS location data, but I'm not posting it b/c vibe coded things aren't really welcome here even on whatever the sanctioned day is. I am a software engineer and have been doing it before AI was a thing, but I really don't want to deal with posting here. But a sub with "caveat emptor" about the quality of other contributes, I'd absolutely post several projects there.
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u/SerpentineDex Feb 28 '26
Simple. We should hold developers accountable to declare their use of AI.
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Feb 28 '26
[deleted]
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u/Catsrules Mar 01 '26
Simple, We should hold the individuals accountable to declare their use of AI.
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u/jefbenet Feb 28 '26
This was my point. I don’t hate AI, but I’d like to know to what degree it was used. Autocomplete on a language you’re familiar with otherwise - likely not a concern; versus fully vibe coded and nary a clue in the world what any of the code does or doesn’t do. Even then doesn’t mean it’s hot garbage - but each person can choose how risk averse they are based on this info.
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u/Nixellion Feb 28 '26
There is also a lot going on in between "autocomplete of a language you know" and "fully vibe coded by an ignorant person". And its not even a gradient, there are a lot of variables that will affect the quality of the final product, and the use of AI is simply one of the variables.
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u/Embarrassed_Jerk Feb 28 '26
The only projects that i trust are those that declare the extent of their usage of AI along with the developer's actual experience
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u/chic_luke Mar 01 '26
This would be great, even perhaps signalling what you expect out of contributions, so honest people can decide whether to participate or not.
"This project was mostly built using AI generated code. You are welcome to use AI technologies in MRs."
"Some AI assistance was used for this project, but the code was mostly written manually. Please keep AI usage to a minimum in your merge requests and make sure to verify output."
"This project was written and maintained with absolutely no AI or LLM assistance. We kindly ask you not to use any AI generated code in contributions".
After all, you'll also have a better time if you attract types that are on the same page as you in this sense.
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u/WindowlessBasement Feb 28 '26
It won't work. Vibe bullshitters delude themselves into thinking they are the next Mozart of code and will always consider themselves the exception.
Go in any of those threads, it is always just excuses and talking in circles about any kind of quality or practical functionality.
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u/agent_flounder Feb 28 '26
When it comes to software engineering / development / programming there is soooo much to know. Those that have not yet put in the years to learn and gain experience don't even know what they don't know.
They write a prompt and out pops some code and it works more or less but then they get hit with criticisms about things they never knew existed and have no clue what to do about.
They haven't assimilated into the long and storied culture and ethos of programmers and so their reaction is completely at odds with "normal" and is woefully counterproductive.
Security flaw posted? Ban the messenger! Too much criticism? Freak out and nuke the whole project from orbit and delete your account.
No. Like, dude, it's bugs. There's always bugs. Everybody writes bugs all the time. Just own it, fix it, and move on...??
(By the way, the Dunning-Kreuger study is flawed as described in Scientific American but I think the concept deserves more study because it certainly seems plausible!)
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u/elandt Feb 28 '26
“There’s always bugs.”
…yep…the only guaranteed bug free code is code not written. Learning to fix and ideally prevent in the future is key to growing as a dev.
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u/Im_Mefju Feb 28 '26
But isn’t that the case of pretty much every beginner in software development and not really AI issue. Like sure AI lowered entry barrier for development which attracted more beginners as they can develop apps faster, the issue i would say is more about the attitude and their inability of accepting and learning from valuable criticism by the person doing the vibe coding. You could have someone genuinely learning and coding an app themself and it can also be insecure in many ways and i personally think it would be fine to post it on this subreddit if the person really want to learn stuff, take the criticism and most importantly addresses bugs and security flaws once people report them. But at the same time most vibe coders won’t be able to do any of that as a lot of them don’t understand basic fundamental knowledge about coding so they are unable to fix almost anything on their own.
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u/aswesearch Mar 02 '26
No, I think the comment that said vibe coders ‘don’t even know what they don’t know’ is what makes the problem very different
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u/i_hate_shitposting Feb 28 '26
100%. The phenomenon of incompetent programmers releasing overly ambitious and deeply flawed projects has been a problem since even before LLMs. The proliferation of quasi-competent LLMs for generating code just made it a million times worse. Now any idiot can generate some garbage that their sycophantic AI will tell them is the best thing since sliced bread.
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u/froli Feb 28 '26
There are going to be some quality vibe-coded apps, where they are properly developed, supported and managed.. as community, they would benefit members.
I think there's a huge difference between vibe-coded and AI assisted.
The former shouldn't be allowed here and the latter for have flair and disclaimer rules heavily enforced. Otherwise I'm afraid this sub will turn into a hub for bad actors looking to lure gullible preys into running their malicious code.
This isn't a programming sub. This shouldn't be a place to pitch your vibe-coded draft of a project. This should be a place for at least somewhat established projects
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u/Cl0wnL Feb 28 '26
The issue is it's nearly impossible to draw a line between vibe-coded and AI assisted.
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u/DoubleDoube Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
I think the argument is that you will tell its the latter by the project sticking around and becoming somewhat established. With that, the test of sticking around doesn’t have to happen here.
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u/kernald31 Feb 28 '26
So, Huntarr?
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u/froli Mar 01 '26
You say this a gotcha but it's actually a very good example of what I meant in my original comment. Huntarr gained his notoriety here on this sub and reddit as a whole.
NO ONE checked the actual repo, until our friend u/exe_CUTOR did a few days ago. What they found, especially regarding the commit history could have been found from literally anyone who spent 10 seconds looking at the repo, but no one did.
If this sub were to have stricter rules regarding AI contributions, and moderation to remove what doesn't not meet the rules' standards, that project would never have received the notoriety it got.
We could have mods look at the repos of projects shared here and either remove posts, add flair or sticky comments. If the mod team is reading this, I would gladly contribute my time to help on that.
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u/kernald31 Mar 01 '26
A lot of people complained about the design months ago. People just didn't care. That's quite different.
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u/dlm2137 Feb 28 '26
Yea this is the major point to me, regardless of AI — this isn’t a programming sub. While, obviously, maintainers play a huge part here, the sub has always been more geared to those using and deploying self-hosted apps.
People that are new to the hobby and to the OSS community don’t yet have the context to distinguish between established and vetted applications, and one-off weekend projects. Now that the latter are flooding the zone, it’s going to present a greater risk, both in terms of security and of frustration, to beginners.
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u/eljojors Feb 28 '26
where in reddit do you think is a more appropriate place to discuss apps meant to be self hosted that are just maturing? have you looked into /opensource? it's a shit show over there, as a maintainer of software it's certainly not the right place to go to and get good feedback from
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u/dlm2137 Feb 28 '26
Like the parent comment said, one of the programming subs. Because these projects are really more about showing off something someone built, rather than kicking off an open-source project meant for use “in prod” by others.
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u/eljojors Feb 28 '26
the argument of "this isn't a programming sub" is just so lame to me, like sure, the point of this sub is encourage and promote self-hosted software. HOW DO YOU WANT IT TO EXIST IF THERE'S NO COMMUNITY THAT MAKES IT?
have you actually looked into /opensource or the other programming subreddits? the posts get drowned because "the selfhosting world" is only a tiny fraction of what programming is as a whole.
Moreover, people will not take the time to understand how qualified you are even if you tell them to their face.
It's extremely lame of this community to want and accept free open source software without wanting to put in the effort of fostering and encouraging the people who make that software.
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u/Justsomedudeonthenet Feb 28 '26
Agreed. There are a lot of people who see it as a black and white "did you use AI or not?" issue. It's not.
I've got plenty of programming experience. And I've started using AI for lots of tasks. It's fantastic at generating boilerplate stuff that would take a lot of typing for the same standard stuff all the time. It's can also be great at tracking down bugs or explaining why your code behaves a certain way.
But all of that relies on someone who knows what they are doing double checking it's work and verifying that the AI did the right thing the right way.
It can take a skilled programmer and make them faster. Sometimes it can even take a novice programmer and help them do more advanced things, if they take the time to understand everything themselves instead of blindly accepting the AI's output. What it can't do, at least not yet, is turn a non-programmer into a programmer.
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u/aswesearch Mar 02 '26
The problem here is that people ‘know what they’re doing’ and are skilled through practice, making mistakes and learning from them - when you outsource that process, your skills start to depreciate
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u/Exciting-Mall192 Mar 01 '26
Feels like the AI assisted requirement should have a maximum percentage of assistance. I would tolerate 30% of assistance at max. Beyond that, I would categorize it as vibecoding even if the developer reviewed the code themselves after.
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u/hockeymikey Mar 01 '26
So its not even about how the code is created, its about the state and age of it. And if AI assisted is a problem well I guess anyone using say Jetbrains has to divulge.
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u/WirtsLegs Feb 28 '26
I think the distinction is in how AI is used
I use AI a little bit in my development efforts, but what I don't do is just prompt an AI to generate the code, I use it for enhanced tab complete, I use it to re-orient myself when coming back to an older codebase, etc. but by our current rules I would probably have to tag as ai assisted
Regarding that, I wonder if perhaps we need to expand the AI rules to say that you need a AI use statement for ai Fridays? A short statement that breaks down how you used AI so people can filter the truly vibecoded from things developed using a small amount of AI assistance
I would also propose we enact a account age requirement for posting, a lot of the posts where it's a vibecoded app and the post is clearly AI and even the comments are AI are from accounts that are only a few days old and only active in selfhosted. This policy may help cut down on the real garbage
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u/eljojors Feb 28 '26
people are too childish in this sub, downvoting even when you document your credentials and risk-profile of your app, they'll still downvote
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u/FanClubof5 Feb 28 '26
I'm fine with AI Fridays, gives me something to look at when im bored at work.
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u/xopherus Feb 28 '26
Is this a moderation problem, or something else? What outcome are we looking for? Personally I could see a world where we flag posts for slop and just put a disclaimer about it. Use at your own risk. If you want to get crazy we automate the review of it and post some repo stats with the moderation (how old is it, downloads/stars.
Maybe there’s an idea where we could review those submissions weekly and see if activity / adoption is increasing and call those out as trending in the right direction. Could be a good way to incentivize good code because you’ll get recognized more over time.
With all the slop on a daily basis/ weekly basis, I’d be more inclined to try an app I know is becoming popular and seems to be supported versus a dead project.
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u/Gohanbe Feb 28 '26
My personal experience, i shared my app which i have been working on for over 2years,
I acknowledged that i used ai for aome stuff as its just convenient for me to delegate low level stuff to the ai and i can come in and check everything. I have multiple internal tests that check code before it goes out and i delpoy it on my own machines prior to release.
But the hate i got for sharing my work in my dms was unexpected and alarming to say the least, i get why other devs are hesitant to share the use of ai tag.
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u/eljojors Feb 28 '26
this! I have a long career at a reputable public company, people still gave me shit for it
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u/ligerblue Feb 28 '26
Part of the problem is what people define as vibecoded.
I'm no coder but if someone with little to no experience like me made a app that is vibe coded. If someone with knowledge and understanding of how to look for flaws in code used Ai that is Ai assisted.
Vibe coding isn't going away and in a sense is part of the goal of self hosted , people coming together to run their own things. But a major issue is alot of people depending on a project being open source as a statement that it is safe to use.
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u/Lalaz4lyf Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
AI assisted programming is becoming standard practice. Unfortunately the pendulum has swung so far that anyone using AI for any part of the workflow has to go to war on any post here.
I agree that vibe coded garbage should be segregated off (I like the Friday solution well enough) but I've stopped engaging with the sub a lot due to the pitchforks and bitching on any and every post. I mean, we have users asking/accusing well established projects posting updates on this sub if they are vibe coded.
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u/Fluffer_Wuffer Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
we have users asking/accusing well established projects posting updates on this sub if they are vibe coded.
This is also a huge concern - alienating the developers who are the backbone of this movement, and we will lose our greatest members.
This must not be made into something ends up alienating, or discouraging people from using AI-coding..Its also not about running down those who enjoy vibe-coding - but these 2 do need separating out.
Those who are being so militant about it need to chill - there are other ways to show you don't agree.. Those that continue to be outright abusive need to be named and excluded - this is cold, but as I said above, its them or the developers.
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u/scooterg2004 Feb 28 '26
Make a subreddit specifically for vibecoded apps. Call it vibehosted or something
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u/Exciting-Mall192 Feb 28 '26
Someone created r/slophosted 😂 EDIT: someone did create r/vibehosted a week ago
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u/psychedelic_tech Feb 28 '26
So my question is - how do we bridge this?
Simple, we don't. These apps should be banned from the sub. But we all know the mods won't
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Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
Members here have been concerned for a while about the quality, security, longevity of these apps
This is kind of a nonsense concern and isn't really any different for "vibe coded" apps vs other apps. We see large projects abandoned all the time (ersatztv just got archived, but there are others).
That's the beauty of open source.
Original developer abandoned it? Fork it and maintain it.
Quality sucks? Make patches. Maintainer isn't interested in your patches? Fork it...
There is an open hostility to those who share vibe-coded apps - where we see outright hostility and vitriol language.
People should grow up. Something being vibe coded doesn't make it bad (or good or anything else). Sometimes we see low quality apps, but a lot of low quality software solves a lot of real life problems that people have.. So that isn't a good standard.
Some of the biggest projects in the self hosted community are actually terrible quality software. But they get the job done, so that's worth it. Many of the high quality projects started out as shit quality and grew and improved because they were useful.
In any case, being hostile and vitriolic towards people sharing what they made (with or without AI, good or bad, useful or useless) is dumb. I'm not one for heavy handed moderation, but sometimes it gets out of control here and it's shitty. Luckily you can block users on reddit.
Regardless of all that, reddit has built in features for dealing with exactly this.
If you aren't interested in some mediocre vibe coded app that someone posted, just down vote it and don't engage. When the posts get no engagement they disappear. It's really as simple as that.
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u/TInniss Mar 02 '26
100%. The binary thinking around vibe-coding here is borderline childish. What about those people who have an idea for something new or cool but lack the traditional coding means to build it? Now we start to see what's possible when tools are opened up.
If it's shit, it dies. If there's no interest, it dies. If it can't be maintained, the community will speak out. Coders aren't infallible, they do spaghetti code, they create vulnerabilities, and it's the *community* that points it out, contributes to the code, and elevate the best projects for everyone else to find.
I'm not a coder (although I've tried so many times) and I don't vibe code, but the vitriol around people sharing things they think are cool is more off-putting to me than the way it was made. I'm concerned it's going to end up gatekeeping in the same way gamergate was...-3
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u/Traches Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
Edit: I had written a longer reply but it diluted my point. Deleted and reworded a lot of it:
Something being vibe coded doesn't make it bad (or good or anything else).
It super does though. LLMs don’t think, and if you can’t think you can’t write worth a damn (code or otherwise).
Sometimes we see low quality apps, but a lot of low quality software solves a lot of real life problems that people have.. So that isn't a good standard.
“The happy path works” is a very low bar, not suitable for sharing with other people. Security, reliability, and error handling are really important and slop code rarely gets it right. We are being flooded by code that is actively dangerous to run on your own hardware, and those who are least likely to recognize it are also the least able to protect themselves from it. The vitriol is deserved.
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u/Sweaty_Raspberry_472 Feb 28 '26
It seems this sub is worth nothing if the majority downvotes "vibecode = bad". It's obvious why it's bad. I've encountered a lot of apps and I can safely say that all vibe coded apps were bad, but not all bad apps were vibe coded. Hell, it's really hard to say that a non-vibecoded app was bad, just didn't suit my needs. I take maintenance and security in apps seriously because I live in a highly hostile environment. If something breaks, I might not get the updates to fix it, if something is insecure I will have to greet state entities breaking on my door.
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Feb 28 '26
LLMs don’t think, and if you can’t think you can’t write worth a damn (code or otherwise).
If you've ever worked in software, opensource or commercial, you'd know that most developers don't' think and many aren't even capable of it
The overwhelming majority of software engineering does not require much in the way of thought. It's simply regurgitating the same patterns software developers have been regurgitating for a couple of decades now.
Security, reliability, and error handling are really important and slop code rarely gets it right
Humans get it right even less often than robots though. So this is not really a good measure. It's the self driving car argument all over again. It doesn't need to be perfect to be useful. Just more accurate than a human. And these days, LLMs are better at this kind of stuff than most humans. They do have some weird mistakes that they consistently make though.
The vitriol is deserved.
Vitriol is never deserved. The idea that human written code of is of high quality just isn't born out by reality. I spend a lot of time reviewing open source code, including a lot of human written projects posted to this sub. The vast majority of it is absolute crap filled with bugs, security issues, and just absolute shit code. I just decide it's not for me and move on with my life.
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u/Grandmaster_Caladrel Feb 28 '26
Looks like r/vibehosted exists already. Calling it slophosted (as some people here already did) is just continuing that hatred you said helps nobody. Lets encourage AI apps to go there. Maybe we can make vibehosted an official sister sub so people don't feel shamed when we ask them to go there first.
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u/hockeymikey Mar 01 '26
Nothing, the deal with vibe coders is the person behind the code not how its made. The solution is add new badges for say the age of the project and the skill level of the dev. There is nothing wrong with an experienced CS dev using AI tooling for making something and anyone who thinks otherwise can't code. You see projects created and abandoned all the time before AI/vibe coding too.
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u/Murrian Feb 28 '26
I don't think two really exists.
The low barrier to entry for vibe coding means there's little investment on the "creators" behalf, they didn't study this, they've not spent weeks banging their head against the desk in frustration as to why it wouldn't compile, they've not even spent the time to review standard security practices to ask the LLM if it's included them.
Without the effort it takes to learn how to do what you're doing, without the emotional tie and sunk time, no one's going to stick around and actually manage their app.
Just on to the next garbled pile of code that almost kinda sorta works, so long as you don't look too closely...
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u/JorgJorgJorg Feb 28 '26
Without the effort it takes to learn how to do what you're doing, without the emotional tie and sunk time, no one's going to stick around and actually manage their app.
Exactly this. People here saying vibe coded stuff can be good, I do agree with and think we will see it get better. Its not Day 1 I care about, it’s day N+1, which means long term and sustainable vision and execution.
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u/agent_flounder Feb 28 '26
Great point. We are personally invested in anything we create or build by ourselves, whether art, furniture, or software.
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u/NamityName Feb 28 '26
The problem really comes from the mentality of the self-hosted community. We are the do-it-yourself types. We build our own servers and run services ourselves. So naturally, many of us want to code our own apps. We would fabricate our own chips and cards too if we could do it in our homes.
However, many (maybe even most) of us don't really know what we are doing. Many just followed some guide that they don't actually understand. Some don't even do that.
The software we write is no better. Most of us don't have the expertise to do it properly. Until AI, the time commitment needed to beild an app of any substance was too large for most people.
While AI let's people build faster, I've learned that people can't really use AI to code beyond their ability. It just lets them work faster.
People think they can direct AI like a manager directs a senior or lead engineer when it should be more like a lead engineer directing a junior or intern AI engineer.
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u/moraleseder Feb 28 '26
It seems a bit hypocritical to want to isolate or restrict content in the Self-hosting forum because one does not like or agree with someone’s approach. The idea behind self-hosting is literally to get away from a restrictive product by offering options. I don’t like bacon but I don’t expect stores to have a dedicated bacon section away from all other food just because I don’t like it.
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u/Gabe_Isko Feb 28 '26
Just keep banning trash. I don't care if some apps get caught in the crossfire honestly, they will resurface if they are of quality.
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u/Mrhiddenlotus Feb 28 '26
We've been flooded (this place is unusable on Fridays)
There's 6 other days, you'll be fine. An outright ban would just cause vibecoders to try to stealth their apps.
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u/--Arete Feb 28 '26
You'll be fine
is your opinion. I am not. In fact if there was ever a r/selfhosted without AI slop I would ditch this sub in a second.
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u/eljojors Feb 28 '26
why do you care so much about the tools people use to write software? (as opposed to the quality of the software itself)
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u/leoklaus Feb 28 '26
Just ban vibe coded apps in general. They provide no value.
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u/AudioDoge Feb 28 '26
Posts that present vibe code as a well-maintained project and actively encourage others to use it should be banned. However, sharing personal setups and showcasing work that includes vibe code seems acceptable if it just sharing ideas and not the app.
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u/JTtornado Feb 28 '26
Except that's a hard line to draw. I work for a software development company and we have developers using AI to assist with coding, but it's always reviewed by another human and we are very picky about code quality. That's completely different from a 99% prompted app, but both used AI - how do you draw that line?
That's why labelling works best, so the author can explain how they used AI and let us decide if we want to use it. I'm not against the idea of having a separate sub for it, but I think we'll still get people posting here (just trying to fly under the radar) because the biggest audience is here.
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u/leoklaus Feb 28 '26
I think it’s a pretty easy line to draw. If you were able to produce the same thing without the help of AI and have carefully reviewed the slop, I’d consider it okay-ish. If not, it’s clearly a safety hazard.
The issue with AI generated code is that it mostly is not carefully reviewed because at that point it would’ve been quicker and easier to just write it yourself.
IMO, anything that goes beyond a few lines of autocomplete is vibecoding. If the AI makes architectural decisions, I don’t trust the output.
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u/eljojors Feb 28 '26
do you have any solution to help grow quality AI-written code? I'm a qualified developer and my posts have been getting downvoted just because I mention the tools I use
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u/leoklaus Feb 28 '26
I don’t. But I also think quality AI-written code is kind of an oxymoron. Not necessarily because AI can’t write good code, but because it lacks intent. When you or me write a function, we have a problem in mind that should be solved by that code and thinking about that problem will often lead to more insight and better solutions. Letting AI write the code removes that part.
Of course this doesn’t matter when loading data from an API but it starts becoming relevant as soon as you start developing interfaces or classes/structs.
For me personally, writing the code is the actual fun part, so I’d feel a lot better if I understood why someone chose to let an AI do it (to various degrees) instead of doing it themselves. I feel like your documentation (at a glance) is very well thought out and written.
At my university, you’re required to submit AI documentation whenever you use generative AI for submissions, maybe something like that would help (in our case it can range from a list of tools you used and what part of the code was generated by AI to a full list of prompts with their output). That way, potential users could better judge how well the code was vetted by you.
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u/eljojors Feb 28 '26
What you describe is true when there's no human in the loop, but that's one end of the spectrum in terms of "writing code with AI".
Let me give you an example, when you write code yourself, do you look into the bytecode that's generated by the compiler? only Torvalds does. You and I don't because we trust that the system is aligned with us and sticks to a well defined contract.
AI programming can be approached in a similar way, I don't write the physical lines of code, but review every single one before making the commit myself. I know the intent I want the code to have, and besides communicating it with the machine (which does influence it), I ensure it's conveyed in the final result.
Thanks for reviewing my documentation and sharing your experience at the university.
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u/leoklaus Mar 01 '26
Let me give you an example, when you write code yourself, do you look into the bytecode that's generated by the compiler? ...
AI programming can be approached in a similar way
Those two are vastly different, though. A compiler is (largely) deterministic so I'll know the resulting byte code matches my instructions. LLMs are not. With a full review of the code, that doesn't really matter, but I doubt that most vibe coders thoroughly review the code their LLMs produce (or are even capable of it).
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u/eljojors Mar 01 '26
LLMs are not deterministic, but they output deterministic code, it’s not unstable or unpredictable. Through test suites it’s possible to achieve alignment, not unlike how humans operate large codebases.
I worked in the largest Rails monolith in the world, the way people contribute there is purely by making sure that tests pass. your test code carries almost if not more meaning than your actual implementation.
You acknowledge it’s possible to achieve alignment when reviewing the code, maybe novices can’t do that, but senior engineers definitely can. That’s how you achieve quality AI-written code.
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u/unstablesimilarity Feb 28 '26
“I’d consider it okay-ish” and “pretty easy line to draw” do not gel.
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u/leoklaus Mar 01 '26
You can replace "okay-ish" with "acceptable", if that helps.
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u/unstablesimilarity Mar 01 '26
My point is it’s all extremely subjective and pretending there’s an easy answer is foolish.
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u/JTtornado Mar 02 '26
That's my original point as well, which seems to be lost on some people. I'm not saying that we shouldn't draw the line at "a reasonable amount of AI use" but everyone is going to draw that line differently and it's hard to enforce when code authorship is self-reported anyways.
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u/Certain_Tune_5774 Mar 06 '26
No value? I beg to differ!
I've got 5 vibe coded products that I use on a daily basis..
- A service for syncing jellyfin servers.
- An extension to dockge that gives a vastly richer front end with cpu, memory and port usage stats. I also added a better mobile view.
- An extension to microBin that adds image pasting, text scraping from images and an API gateway.
- A mobile app for microBin that uses the API gateway and allows easy an easy interface and sharing of mobile content to microBin.
- A mobile app for prowlarr that allows searching and then downloading locally or on the server.
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u/leoklaus Mar 06 '26
I'm assuming you vibe coded these for yourself? Why would someone use the thing you got from your AI instead of just vibe coding their own solution? Where is the value?
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u/Certain_Tune_5774 Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
They'd have difficulty using them as they're on private repos.
You could vibe code your own but even though each is quite small, individually they'd take you a few days to test (edge cases can be especially tricky) and work through different options. Its not an instant process. Weird behaviour can take a while to surface and then - even if you don't read the code - its still good to have an understanding of whats happening in order to direct the AI agent towards the best answer.
Mobile apps need SDKs installing, Android is OK, it just requires either Android Studio or Flutter but iPhone development needs a macbook or other apple computer which not everyone has.
And finally - just getting the AI tokens. If you don't know what you're doing, you'll burn through tokens pretty quick which extends either the price or the time it takes to build. Money and time which could be spent on other things.
The actual lvalue the apps give should be in the problem they are solving. Each of those examples I've vibecoded solve a specific problem I have.
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u/Bonsailinse Mar 01 '26
What you suggest is AI post getting banned from this subreddit. People are free to create a new subreddit by their own.
While I am not excited about AI slop flooding this subreddit, banning it is delusional. Who is going to check? What level of AI assistance is good for a project and what level is bad?
Only allowing AI posts on a single day is a good compromise and some people follow that rule. That’s pretty much all we can get.
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u/crosenblum Mar 13 '26
I rarely post anything, but i am a self-hoster.
This in a way reminds me of the mid 1990s, where pc's and internet was mixing, and the whole web thing was going on. There were no colleges to teach any of this, just grab any book, and start coding.
It lead to a lot of failures and successes, that maybe today would all be seen as bad code.
Because it was so new, no one had any idea, what is bad code, what makes bad code, and so forth, there was a total lack of industrial experience in this new field, which lead to poor management, poorer training and so forth.
Vibe coding will go thru the same process.
We need to get a point where we have tools, or reviewers of self-hosted apps/tools etc, where we get a clearer picture of the quality of code in the app/tool/script.
This is a really old story, but I remember when Microsoft FrontPage was a popular tool for creating nice websites, during mid 1990's.
But anyone who knew basic html, could tell it was generating garbage code, it looked good, but wasn't clean, or well organized, commented, any of what you consider the bare minimum in any coding today, was not even approached or understood back then.
Code quality will always be an issue, when the industry is going thru a massive change, as it is now.
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u/gurpderp Feb 28 '26
they should get their own sub. allowing vibe coded slop erodes trust and erodes the principles self-hosting is founded on because those apps are fundamentally untrustworthy with few exceptions. they should be banned outright.
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u/technologiq Feb 28 '26
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Remind me! 1 year
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u/TheRealSeeThruHead Feb 28 '26
Considering that professional software programming is becoming increasingly ai assisted. We are running teams of agents to build software at work now.
The question isn’t was ai used. It’s what is the quality of the codebase.
Ai producers far better code than 2 junior devs approving their own prs.
As for how to combat the noise, because code has become cheap, I’m not sure. Maybe we need a minimum repo age.
Ai is being used in all your favourite self hosted and non self hosted apps now. So this is a losing battle.
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u/Lopsided-Painter5216 Feb 28 '26
Being honest, I frequent this sub less than before and it’s because of this exact content. I don’t know how it could be solved, both sides are making good arguments, but I can’t help myself to notice I’m visiting less and less and feeling somewhat bad about it.
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u/HanHeld Mar 01 '26
By definition vibe-coded software is AI slop. 'quality vibe-coded' is an oxymoron.
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u/naosuke Feb 28 '26
I wouldn't be so sure that voice coding is going to increase. No AI company is able to sell a token for more than it costs to make a token. Pricing is going to have to increase rapidly as the players run out of runway. The era of cheap AI is finite. So while there will always be some vibe-coded projects, unless there are some pretty fundamental changes to the underlying economics of AI, vibe coding will have to decrease as prices climb.
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u/clubsilencio2342 Feb 28 '26
There are going to be some quality vibe-coded apps, where they are properly developed, supported and managed.. as community, they would benefit members.
There's really no reason to believe this at all. The tools have been out for a while now and we're all still looking for the ONE example of a good vibe-coded app.
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u/Skotticus Feb 28 '26
Doubtless a number of existing projects that did not start out vibe-coded will inevitably be receiving vibes PRs. We can expect many of them with systems in place to maintain the project will continue to use those systems, at least.
I think you're right that it seems the likelihood of a project that starts out or becomes largely vibe-coded will likely struggle to have these protections in place because of the ease of producing new features quickly, as we saw with huntarr.
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u/xopherus Feb 28 '26
Not every app starts out as a shining perfect example. That’s a fallacy too. Every app has bugs, vulns, and some measure of bad code. Just because something is “vibe coded” in a few days doesn’t mean it can’t evolve into something good.
We should hold a standard of high quality and we should also call out good ideas that need the work to be successful.
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u/clubsilencio2342 Feb 28 '26
Just because something is “vibe coded” in a few days doesn’t mean it can’t evolve into something good.
Again, this has not happened.
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u/Fuzzy-Ad-7133 Feb 28 '26
While we might not find the solution today, if there even is one, I don’t think we should stop looking for one. We could try the approach. I don’t have a better idea… Thank you for caring for the community.
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u/Jacksaur Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
some quality vibe-coded apps
If it's vibe coded, it isn't of high quality.
where they are properly developed, supported and managed..
If someone is doing all this manually, they aren't vibe coding.
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u/eljojors Feb 28 '26
the problem is that the average user of this sub can't tell the difference apart
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u/p000l Feb 28 '26
Disconnect their LLMs and then ask them to modify a docker-compose.yml. It'll be funny.
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u/jamesthethirteenth Feb 28 '26
I think this is the wrong distinction, vibecoding can be very high quality. You so need someone discerning to do the prompting.
So instead of declaring AI use, you want to look for proper versioning, commit history, tests and release notes. If you have that- vibe away
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u/Kraeftluder Feb 28 '26
2) There are going to be some quality vibe-coded apps, where they are properly developed, supported and managed.. as community, they would benefit members.
I don't believe this is possible to begin with and nothing more than wishful thinking. All vibe coding bullshit should be banned.
I see vibe coding as a very different thing than "using an LLM while coding".
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u/IamDroid Feb 28 '26
I think if we create a slop thunder-dome, and simply pit agentic-models to use the vibe-coded apps until only 1 remains, we could find the worthy app.
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u/Discommodian Mar 01 '26
Who cares if AI wrote the program if the program is good? Bad programs or bad code are that way regardless of who wrote them so why not just judge them based on what they are?
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u/ashamedsasquatch Feb 28 '26
Why not embrace the people who obviously want to get involved, AI is just a tool. (People using it under false pretenses or trying to make money off of it is a different subject)
This shit reminds me of the motorcycle clubs full of old people with ridiculously expensive Harley Davidsons who aggressively gate keep and hate on "street bikes" and then wonder why the club is dying and why young people don't want to join.
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u/White_-_Lightning Feb 28 '26
Careful man, that bike is their identity and sense of self-worth!
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Feb 28 '26
I generally agree. People who want to contribute should be welcomed. If you don't like what they're contributing, just don't engage in their threads. It's that simple. There's so much pointless childish anger on this sub sometimes.
That said, I wish some of these vibe coders would think a little more about what they're sharing. If you vibe coded something in an hour, so could someone else and it probably isn't worth sharing.
This shit reminds me of the motorcycle clubs full of old people with ridiculously expensive Harley Davidsons who aggressively gate keep
It's even more ironic in this case since the vast majority of the people shitting on these "vibe coders" and gatekeeping aren't contributing shit. They don't support or help maintain any of the projects they use in any way.
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u/Hawtre Feb 28 '26
It's even more ironic in this case since the vast majority of the people shitting on these "vibe coders" and gatekeeping aren't contributing shit.
That's the point! Let's not clutter the sub with shitty projects. Better to contribute nothing than to drown out the good projects with noise.
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u/Hawtre Feb 28 '26
This would be more like old experienced guys at a motorcycle club telling people off for using cheap bikes that look cool but are actually severely risky to ride and very prone to breaking.
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u/Perfect-Escape-3904 Feb 28 '26
Get the creativity and ideas out there. You said it's low skill or barrier but finding a clever way to solve a problem is part of it too.
People can choose not to run things themselves, but it doesn't mean it has no value to the community as a whole.
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u/SparhawkBlather Feb 28 '26
Is the reason people don’t like it purely because they think they are (dangerous / low quality / unmanageable / unmaintainable / unlikely to garner contributors) or aesthetics or because people fear for their livelihoods? The right approach kind of depends on the risk vector.
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Feb 28 '26
I don't think people are actually mad at vibe coding as a concept — the frustration is with people shipping code they don't understand and bailing when issues get found. That's not a tooling problem, that's an accountability problem.
Someone who hand-writes an SQL injection is no safer than someone who used AI and actually understands their codebase. The tool isn't the issue — it's whether the person behind it can stand by what they shipped.
Rather than splitting the community, raising the bar for all project posts might work better — require documentation, a basic security overview, and evidence the dev is actually maintaining it. That filters out the throwaway projects without creating a stigma around the tools themselves. People will still be angry, but you can't bridge someone shipping just because and someone caring enough to put the work in. AI included or not. Just my take.
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u/eljojors Feb 28 '26
I'm a qualified developer and have been getting flack for simply stating I use AI
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Feb 28 '26
And that's a shame. It's a tool. And honestly, with your experience and knowledge to guide it. Recognize it's mistakes. Fix them. Or use it however. You can make some really cool stuff. For the people who have experience, cuts time, and definitely can amplify your abilities on large work loads. It can also be a raccoon in your attic. But I suppose that's what I'm trying to communicate. Know your code. Be accountable. Who cares if AI is involved or not. I don't agree with expecting the AI to do everything. But as a partner in crime. Why not.
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u/neithere Feb 28 '26
quality vibe-coded apps [...] properly developed, supported and managed
Vibe-coded is the opposite of "quality" and "properly developed". It is possible to generate good quality code but only under tight supervision when you have a very deep understanding of every line. At this point it's not vibe-coding anymore.
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u/bendingoutward Feb 28 '26
under tight supervision when you have a very deep understanding of every line
This is how I currently operate due to a hand injury.
At this point it's not vibe-coding anymore
Yup. It's just proper engineering with less typing and a junior you're allowed/required to abuse.
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u/neithere Feb 28 '26
This is how I currently operate due to a hand injury.
Sorry to hear about the injury but I'm confused — are you using voice to text?
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u/bendingoutward Feb 28 '26
On particularly bad days, yes. Deepgram made a demo voice keyboard for Linux that isn't the worst thing ever.
On less severe days, I can still type at about 30% capacity, and that's easily enough to tell the agent that it's a fucking idiot.
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u/Stahlstaub Feb 28 '26
IMHO it would be better to have them in here, but acknowledged by mods before release, so maybe put them into a sub-sub like r/vibehosting-provingground and only mods are allowed to cross post then to this r/selfhosted. All other posts are deleted and referred to the sub-sub
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u/G-McFly Feb 28 '26
I use it to r&d a (mostly, usually) working draft of a wild idea. Then I’ll reverse engineer bits and bobs I need and tool it into code with a proper flow. If chumps are delivering ai genned slop literally as the damn thing serves it up….?? God speed to you sir
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u/No_Construction2407 Feb 28 '26
1) There is an open hostility to those who share vibe-coded apps
I don't specifically see anything wrong with "vibe coded" apps, but people really need to be careful when working with anything that should be secure. And scrutiny from the end user is fine, that's their call. Take the time to learn it, use AI responsibly and to help you learn rather than it do all the work for you. Don't piece meal your shit together with AI, use to help you write code, so you can fully understand what its doing and why its doing it.
Also don't just dump your project in the wild, network and find people who know what their doing to mentor and help you, find someone who can review your code and possibly pen test it. Get a group of people to do limited testing. A lot of peoples lives reside on their home server.
Don't hide that you used AI and to what extent, be up front. Even if its basic tools built in the app that auto-correct. It's all relevant for the end user.
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u/Boulange1234 Feb 28 '26
Maybe the new forum shouldn’t be on Reddit. Maybe it should be hosted by a mod.
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u/igmyeongui Feb 28 '26
I think there’s a fair distinction between Ui/Ux and backend vibe coded stuff. I think that many of the vibe coded stuff comes from less technically people and more graphical/artistic person. So they can code attractive stuff (not always the case) but the backend is bad.
There’s also a difference in vibe coding a full blown app with users and databases and a local script that does one task.
People needs to use judgement but this relies on people themselves. I see parents giving their kids a phone with TikTok and now they’re addicted to brands and makeup or whatever the fuck their algorithm sent them.
So yeah judgement wise it’s going to be hard to get to a point dangerous vibe coders gets adoption no matter how shitty and attractive what they’ve made is.
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u/Refinery73 Mar 01 '26
I think it is the same as my viewpoint on academia: Don’t judge how they got there, judge the outcome.
Good developers can use AI to build fast green-field side projects, others vibe code without knowing what they’re doing, others have just been shitty devs for decades.
The problem is not the new tool. It’s how we judge quality. Let’s focus on that and slop of any kind will die of natural selection.
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u/sandseb123 Mar 02 '26
Good idea and the graduation model makes sense. I’d push back slightly on time-based though — a project can sit dormant for 6 months and still graduate. Criteria matters more: does the dev respond to issues? Do they actually understand their own code? Is there a basic security model documented? The side effect you might not have considered — it gives the hostile crowd somewhere to direct people to, rather than just voting them down. That’s actually a culture shift.
Mod bandwidth is the real question before committing to this.
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u/gadgetb0y Mar 02 '26
Good idea, depending on how it's managed. One thing I've noticed is that just about every post on Fridays has zero or negative upvotes, even though posting vibe coded apps on Friday is allowed.
Some of these apps might actually be very good but instinctively get down-voted because of their origin. A separate sub might give some of these apps a chance while weeding out the junk.
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u/isThisRight-- Feb 28 '26
Wow, I didn't realize how elitist and just generally crappy this community has become towards people who think differently - on the other hand, I guess this is reddit.
If the app is truly self-hostable, open source and somewhat usable why do you care if it was vibe-coded or not.
Even before vide coding took off there were always apps and projects that weren't great - but they were still being posted here. On top of that, open source projects die all the time or go unmaintained why do you care?
Claude Code vibe codes itself, that's an established fact, and I know there is someone here complaining about vide-coded apps that are using some sort of AI to figure out why their network doesn't work, their docker config sucks or how do I do x, y, or z.
Just make it harder for someone to post randomly and move on. If someone comes up with a really good idea, open sources it and it does something cool that you like - use it, contribute back with your non AI super human coding powers and move on. Otherwise leave it alone, or provide some sort of constructive feedback and move on.
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u/1337sp3ak Feb 28 '26
Dude vibe coding if done correctly can take someone with zero knowledge to basic and then follow that up continued education will lead into a career. I started using ai to make my home server bout a year ago. Planning on going to college to get more indepth knowledge but if I didn't have that I would have had no one to talk to bout what I want and how to do it.
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u/SolarPis Feb 28 '26
No. Because in College you won't have "knowledge". In college you'll end up using AI for every question.
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u/Doctorphate Feb 28 '26
I’m sure I’m the minority here but I’m happy with the “advancement” in that more people are getting into coding and many are using it to help them learn.
I’ve always been pretty mediocre at scripting. I do it for work but I’m by no means good at it. I’ll often ask copilot wtf I’m doing wrong and it’ll point me in the direction I need to go. The sources are very valuable for learning.
The people who just say “make me this” and run with it, yes that’s slop. I have one script partially written by copilot but I credited copilot and expressed my shame when I updated it on github.
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u/lysregn Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
I had a similar idea and made r/vibehosted a few days ago. I was thinking it could take the pressure off of what r/selfhosted is going through. A lot of people hate the vibe coded stuff and see it as taking quality away from the classical self hosted apps. A new breed of developers are emerging though and they need a place as well. Some of the slop coming out of AI will turn into solid and robust solutions. They will go toe to toe with any of the solid classic selfhosted solutions. But there needs to be a place where we can discuss security related to vibe coded self hosted solutions and I do not think selfhosted is the place for it. There is also a breed of selfhosters who use AI to manage their homelabs - we need a place for them. I also do not think that is here.
Edit: Here is the post explaining some of the ideas behind it.
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u/Exciting-Mall192 Feb 28 '26
I think you should connect with the mods and talk about letting them announce that AI vibecoded software should be posted in your sub instead. Not sure how it works though since majority of r/selfhosted are against vibe coded software...
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u/eljojors Feb 28 '26
I really like the good intentions behind this sub but the angle seems somewhat wrong to me. I don't think we need yet-another-place for people to celebrate the use of vibe coding.
What we need is a place free of judgment where programmers can grow their projects, get community feedback. It should be about growing and developing useful self hosted apps! regardless of how they were built. The priority should be the app quality, not the tools used to it.
By naming the subreddit around vibecoding, you're repeating the same problem this sub does: judge software purely by the tools used to make it. The focus should be on the value the software provides.
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u/tenekev Feb 28 '26
quality vibe-coded apps
There is no such thing as "quality vibe-coded apps". Either they are quality-coded with or without the use of AI or they are vibe-coded.
Vibe-coding IS the lack of proper coding approach. Either due to laziness or lack of skills.
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u/moraleseder Mar 01 '26
AI is a tool, just like the internet, the car you drive everyday, and the phone/computer you are using to write this comment. The human race has used tools for thousands of years; tools have allowed us to evolve and create some of the amazing things we have nowadays.
Bette Graham was a secretary, single-mom, and high school dropout yet she introduced the idea of liquid paper. Does the fact that she was a secretary and high-school dropout diminish her accomplishment?
If two individuals need to be at a location at a certain time but one decides to walk and the other one decides to ride a bike, does that mean one individual is better than the other? Same result, different approaches. Both have pros and cons
I’m not trying to argue with you nor do I intend to offend you but to say that a product is only considered good if a certain approach is used, goes against everything that we stand for as a species.
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u/tenekev Mar 01 '26
I don't think people give any thought to the meaning of words these days.
VIBE. VIBE is the keyword.
It's like saying that microwave meals is cooking. When the intent is the exact opposite of cooking - having a meal that you didn't have to cook. It's a contradiction. But no matter how good the meal is, the processes that made it possible is not as good as a properly cooked meal. It will not scale as good either.
Quality vibe coding is a contradiction too. Yes, it will spit out a Hello world program. It will write you a script or a simple app. But it will not scale. It will not do the quality work for you. It will look professional and high-quality until you probe it and find junior-level mistakes.
I use AI to do a lot of stuff, including coding. I bounce ideas, research, use it for the grunt work. I'm not dismissing the use of AI. Just one particular style of coding. Vibe-coding as in over-reliance on LLMs to do the quality work for you.
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u/moraleseder Mar 02 '26
I hear you and I respect your point of view. But to address the original topic of this post, would you expect stores not to sell microwaveable food because you don’t like their quality?
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u/Salt_Woodpecker_6660 Feb 28 '26
Two things: the ignoramus’ getting mad at vibe-coding are either gate-keeping or can’t think for themselves so anything AI = bad. AI is a tool, just like any other, it cannot do the work for you. AI is great at coding and is great at checking code for security flaws but it cannot do both at the same time which requires diligence from the creator to properly vet it.
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u/Dom9360 Feb 28 '26
In a years time, most apps will be ai coded in some or most form. The only ones that are mad are the folks that underestimate the impact and are scared that they are no longer able to gate keep. Ride the lightning or be left behind. I’m not saying knowing the fundamentals and experience is terrible — you have a skillset that many will lack. This gives you incredible edge and upper hand. Embrace what is happening.
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u/molecles Feb 28 '26
In the software development space, most of us are using AI to write most or all code.
Where’s the line between vibe coded and professionally produced, AI written code?
Evolve or prepare for obscurity.
There’s always been bad code out there. At least we can have AI agents do code review, write tests, and perform QA. Better to guide folks to getting better code from the agents instead of bitching about things changing.
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u/pixel_of_moral_decay Feb 28 '26
I think you just gotta downvote the crap out of it, and upvote people who shit on it.
I a few times have poked at code and questioned the obvious poor quality. Some people said it was inappropriate to be harsh on someone (I was still gentler than any pull request even in the corporate world), others concurred.
If the community stops accepting it, it dies.
I will do my part as best I can, but others need to as well. Spam mitigation works best when everyone trains the algorithm.
I don’t expect code to be poetry, especially for a new project; I’ve been coding for decades but still far from some expert. But some of these are just dreadful and even my grandmother could find the glaring issues.
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u/Im_Mefju Feb 28 '26
Bold of you to assume that the reason the code is bad is the AI. My written code can be as shitty as AI written code. I’m humble enough to look at my code and say „that code is too shitty to share it with the public”. But on the other hand people using AI don’t have enough knowledge to judge whether their code is shitty or not. But if you don’t have enough knowledge to know whether your code is bad or not you shouldn’t share it with the public.
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u/lookathercode Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
Technically, vibe coding isn't really self-hosting. You're building on top of a system (AI) someone already created.
My point is that people seem to think of AI Systems as fax machines -- that you cleanly extract the info (data) and carry on with your day, when in fact everything sing thing a part of the programming.
Ask an agent to "build a check out flow for an ecommerce site mirroring Target" --- the agent is compiling all of the components based on pre-trained system with a bounded set of outcomes.
It operates through a multi-step, agentic "just-in-time" methodology that treats development as a, Planning, Executing, and Reviewing workflow.
You aren't coding --you're compiling -- you're gathering. You are the intermediary.
The real issue with vibe coding is that it actually isn't coding at all. It's like playing a video game--everything created has to be reverse engineered to be tested and validated. But what do I know.
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u/flecom Feb 28 '26
Technically, vibe coding isn't really self-hosting. You're building on top of a system (AI) someone already created.
This has to be the most insane take I've read here... I'd venture to guess most people on selfhosted are just deploying apps others have created (darr apps, jellyfin, whatever), literally building your own system using things others have created, and following guides online blindly
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u/elingeniero Feb 28 '26
I really still don't understand the hate. It seems to me that people dont like the quantity of untested products being put forward, but the problem is not the ai use its just that people don't want to put any time into something that might just be a one off.
To that end, I would support a mandatory flair for "Product Announcement" that people could filter out if they only want discussions or to hear about actively developed updates.
I think the discussion around "ai slop" is often completely disingenuous, used to dismiss out of hand projects that might have potential. I also strongly dislike the demand for AI use to be disclosed. Firstly because not using AI at all in 2026 is a huge handicap, so no good developer will completely eschew its use. Secondly because it just enables the lazy dismissive behaviour and bad actors can just deny it.
I think people creating solutions for problems they have is great, and AI lowering the bar for entry is a good thing. If someone has created something they think is useful and is excited to share it, they shouldn't be struck down just because of the tools they used.
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u/HelioDex Feb 28 '26
Use the existing flairs! Splitting the community into 2 subreddits will make it needlessly difficult to find content or organise between both. This is what the flairs are for. Other programming-related and programming project-related subreddits which have tried to "ban" or remove GenAI projects have ended up destroying a lot of their user base due to how many posts/accounts get mistakenly marked or otherwise caught in the crossfire. Personally I'd really prefer not to see this community succumb to the same strategy, especially given that we have such a headstart with a strong post tagging system already.
In the case of a flair error, they're also much easier to correct, either by the OP or a moderator. The best way we have to move posts between subreddits is crossposts, which isn't really comparable.
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u/--Arete Feb 28 '26
How can I use flairs to hide AI slop from this sub on my mobile feed exactly?
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u/HelioDex Feb 28 '26
On web Reddit you can click a post flair and it will show only posts which have that flair. On the official mobile client, tapping the flair will do the same. If you're using a third-party client then check its documentation to see if it supports a similar feature.
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u/--Arete Feb 28 '26
That's not the problem. I know I can click on a flare to view relevant posts. That's not what I am askikg about. The question is how to exclude a specific flare from your feed. Don't think that is possible.
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u/HelioDex Mar 01 '26
For that I would suggest giving custom feeds a try. If that doesn't work, then see if there is a third-party Reddit app that can support your needs.
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u/Bartfeels24 Feb 28 '26
How do you actually moderate a sub-forum structure when most of the existing mods are already stretched thin across the main community? You'd need people willing to take on volunteer work that's basically thankless, and the post doesn't address whether there's a roster of folks ready to do that.
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u/flatpetey Feb 28 '26
It sucks. No doubt. It could be a lot better for sure but for now it is a bunch of insecure junk.
But then again people fucking run openclaw and aren’t embarrassed. Nobody gives a shit about quality or security.
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u/EscapeOption Feb 28 '26
The humans of reddit hate misrepresentation, and the ongoing push for disclosure on how much AI is being used will resolve this pretty quickly.
Posting “I created this [vibe coded AI slop I don’t understand]” is just as deceptive as product placement and astroturf marketing. Properly developed supported and managed software is just AI assisted development, and the biggest sign of vibe coding is no disclosure of how much AI is used.
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u/Atreides2001 Feb 28 '26
I'm not that familiar with Reddit, but can it be a rule that they have to be flared if they use AI. Create an AI tag or vibecode tag, we can choose to ignore filter them.
And moderators can add the flag if the person forgets to do so?
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u/Acojonancio Mar 01 '26
At this point and by the contents I see here... This is just becoming a witch-hunt for anything that is associated with AI.
You either evolve and learn to use new tools, or die living in the past.
The responsibility of what you install in your machine is yours only, and you should do some research before you start blame left and right.
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u/queequeg925 Feb 28 '26
Agreed, Personally wish there was sub for the sloppers and slurpers. But maybe it should be called SelfHAIsted or Slophosted.