Vibe Coding

Vibe coding colleagues: sharing 18 AI products with free tiers or open-sourced tools organized into 6 steps: Explore→ Validate→ Plan→ Prompting + Vibe Coding→ Deeper-integrated Workflows→ Launch

This is not a definitive list. There are thousands of tools out there for every purpose. I intentionally sought out products with free tiers that actually provide real value (even without upgrading) and open-sourced tools.

I broke the journey into 6 simple steps, from exploring new ideas to launching a project.

This isn't a promotion. No hyped-up or hidden affiliated links. No agenda. Just a curated set to cut through the noise—especially for people who are inundated with new AI tools every day.

Step 0: Exploration (spark curiosity & find inspiration)

• GenAI Works → Browse curated AI tools and updates
• NotebookLM → Gather research from documents and sources, then synthesize ideas (well-known, but included because it speeds up research)
• There's An AI For That → Search a large directory of AI tools to see what's possible

Step 1: Validate Before You Build (find and confirm real problems)

• IdeaPicker → Scan user complaints and pain points across platforms to identify a problem to build a solution for
• FounderPal → Stress-test your idea quickly with AI-assisted validation
• Makeform → Collect lightweight survey responses to confirm assumptions

Step 2: Early Planning & Design (plan before deep building)

• Visily → Take a screenshot of a screen you like, refine UI/UX wireframes with AI-assisted suggestions, get the code
• Lovable → Prompt your idea and generate starter front-end UI wickedly fast (more well-known, but included here because it's a fast way to create a working baseline you can iterate on)
• Taskade → Turn vague ideas into structured tasks and simple roadmaps

Step 3: Learn the Basics (Prompting + Vibe Coding) (build core skills before diving deeper)

• Learn Prompting → Practice prompt and meta-prompt engineering with simple examples
• Cursor → Write and edit code conversationally with Claude (well-known, but included because it makes learning coding workflows less intimidating; switch to VS Code for a deeper, lower-cost setup)
• Mintlify → Read and understand codebases or repos more easily with AI-assisted docs

Step 4: Claude-Focused Build Tools (build smarter workflows & apps)

• Awesome Claude Code → GitHub repo to explore an extensive, organized list of Claude-focused resources
• Claude Flow → GitHub repo to orchestrate swarms of agents together with multi-step workflows
• Awesome MCP Servers → Extend Claude with Model Context Protocol integrations

Step 5: Post-Development – Ship, Visualize & Scale (get it out to the world)

• Launch Directories → List and share your project in curated directories
• Simple Analytics → Track basic site analytics without complexity or privacy headaches
• ChartPixel → Turn raw data into clean visuals for reports and insights