I tried vibe coding an app as a beginner - here's what Cursor and Replit taught me

A non-programmer tested AI coding tools like Cursor, Replit, Visual Studio, and Lovable to build a document analysis app using natural language prompts. While the tools automated setup tasks impressively, frequent technical roadblocks, disappearing chat histories, and paywall limitations made progress difficult. The experiment revealed that while AI coding tools excel at boilerplate code generation, meaningful application development still requires substantial programming knowledge and product design skills.