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AI moves fast.
So do vibe coders.

Vibe Coder's Life is a free newsletter and website about vibe coding and AI news for non-developer builders shipping with Cursor, Claude, and modern AI tools. Raw wins, honest failures, and tool picks that actually work — straight to your inbox.

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Built for builders
who don't call themselves developers

I'm Viktor — founder, consultant, and serial vibe coder from Budapest. This newsletter shares what I'm building, breaking, and shipping with AI — practical AI news for people who vibe code instead of memorizing syntax.

01

Real AI Updates

No hype. Curated news on the tools, models, and moves that actually matter for people who build with AI — not just follow it.

02

Build in Public

Real progress on side projects and experiments — wins, failures, and what I'd do differently. The stories land in the newsletter.

03

Tools That Work

Honest takes on the stack behind this newsletter, with affiliate links where they exist so you always know the score.

04

Multiple Times a Week

Fast-moving space needs a fast-moving newsletter. Short, readable, and always worth five minutes of your morning.

Latest posts — vibe coding & AI news

Articles from this newsletter — migration guides, AI news roundups, and build-in-public updates. Browse the archive or subscribe for new posts in your inbox.

View all posts →

Free auth for vibe coding (2026)

How to add free user login to a vibe-coded project — Clerk as the start-here, then WorkOS, Supabase Auth, Kinde, and OSS (Better Auth / Auth.js).

When Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini went dark on the same day

A strong September model week — then half your stack 500’d. FOMO, token anxiety, and a spare-tire plan for vibe coders.

100+ AI Image Prompt Commands for ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok & MAI

Slash tokens like /xray and /blueprint are shorthand, not official APIs. Same copy-paste recipes for ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Microsoft AI (MAI Playground) chats — plus a 100+ catalog on GitHub.

How I create Apify Actors people actually pay to use

First Store submit, eight live Actors, the Graveyard, and the Playbook that grew out of the packaging scars.

Free database and storage for vibe coding (2026)

How to add free Postgres, Redis, and file storage to a vibe-coded project — Neon as the start-here, then Supabase, Turso, D1, R2, and when the free tier ends.

Who is behind Ox Alpha? The stealth model on OpenRouter (2026)

Ox Alpha arrived on OpenRouter as a free stealth model for coding and long agent loops. Here’s what OpenRouter officially says, why Z.ai / GLM-5.3 is the strongest public guess, and how to test it in chat or VS Code + Cline.

Free hosting for vibe coding (2026)

How to host your vibe-coded project for free — Cloudflare Pages, Vercel Hobby, Netlify, GitHub Pages, and Render, plus when Hobby is not enough (Stripe / commercial).

How to Benchmark AI Models Yourself in 2026 (VCL VibeBench Fun, Dev, and Score)

Clone the open suite, paste Fun prompts in any chat, then run Dev and Score with your own OpenRouter key — including how to read a 9/12 Score log.

Free vibe coding courses (2026)

A practical map of free and low-cost AI coding training — Codecademy, Udemy picks, Anthropic Skilljar, OpenAI Academy, Cursor Workshops, Grow with Google, plus a clear start-here path.

Curious what I'm actually building with?

If you're interested to see what I'm using — AI assistants, hosting, automation, and the rest of the stack — check out the tools. Honest notes, affiliate links called out, and everything I reach for week to week.

50+ tools
Cursor Cursor
Claude Code Claude Code
ChatGPT ChatGPT
Vercel Vercel
Neon Postgres Neon
Resend email API Resend
n8n workflow automation n8n
Lovable AI app builder Lovable
Perplexity AI search Perplexity
Midjourney AI images Midjourney
GitHub GitHub
Replit Replit

Build Apify Actors people will actually pay to use.

A practical 104-page playbook + 100 Actor ideas + 80+ AI prompts + TypeScript starter Actor + launch templates — built from real Store launches, failures, and pricing decisions.

We built VCL VibeBench — Fun, Dev, and Score

Three open suites, no blended “best model” number. Paste a prompt in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, or Cursor — or clone the repo and run the CLI with your key (BYOK). We don’t run visitor evals on our credit.

Fun (1.0)

Chat or npm run eval:fun · scored items have a clear expected answer

Strawberry · expect 3 (only the number)

How many times does the letter R appear in the word 'strawberry'? Answer with just the number.

Sheep riddle · expect reasoning that lands on 9

A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 die. How many sheep are left? Explain your reasoning in one sentence.

9.11 vs 9.9 · expect 9.9 (only the number)

Which is larger: 9.11 or 9.9? Answer with just the larger number.

Dev (1.1)

Chat or npm run eval:dev · coding / debugging

Off-by-one · last_three

This function is supposed to return the last 3 items of a list, but it has a bug.
Find the bug and explain the fix in 2 sentences, then show the corrected code.

def last_three(items):
    return items[-4:-1]

Broken SQL totals · expect GROUP BY

This query is supposed to return each customer's total spend, but it's returning wrong
totals for customers with multiple orders. What's wrong and what's the fix?

SELECT customers.name, orders.amount
FROM customers
JOIN orders ON customers.id = orders.customer_id;

XSS in Express · name the vuln, then fix

This Express route renders a user-supplied name into HTML. Name the vulnerability in one
word and the safest fix in one sentence, then show a corrected one-liner.

app.get('/hello', (req, res) => {
  res.send('<h1>Hello ' + req.query.name + '</h1>');
});

Score (1.2)

Chat or npm run eval:score:smoke / eval:score · write one named function; hidden tests pass or fail

slugify

Write a JavaScript function slugify(str) that:
- lowercases
- replaces any run of spaces or punctuation (anything not a-z, 0-9) with a single hyphen
- strips leading/trailing hyphens
Return ONLY a markdown javascript code fence with the function. No tests, no explanation.

isPalindrome

Write a JavaScript function isPalindrome(str) that returns true if str is a palindrome
ignoring case, spaces, and punctuation (keep only a-z0-9). Empty string is true.
Return ONLY a markdown javascript code fence with the function. No tests, no explanation.

chunk

Write a JavaScript function chunk(arr, size) that splits arr into arrays of length size.
The last chunk may be shorter. If size < 1, return []. Do not mutate arr.
Return ONLY a markdown javascript code fence with the function. No tests, no explanation.

Full suites, BYOK clone commands, and how to read a Score log: GitHub. Or try the browser explorer on Hugging Face — no clone required.

Common questions

Who runs Vibe Coder's Life, who it's for, what's included, and how to subscribe, browse posts, or explore the tools directory.

What is vibe coding?

Vibe coding means building software by describing outcomes to AI tools — Cursor, Claude, Lovable, Bolt — and iterating in plain language instead of hand-writing every line. Vibe Coder's Life documents that workflow for non-developers who still ship real products.

What is Vibe Coder's Life?

Vibe Coder's Life is a free website and newsletter by Viktor. It publishes AI news, vibe coding guides, a searchable AI tools directory, and build-in-public posts.

Is this a newsletter?

Yes — focused on AI-assisted development, not traditional CS coursework. Subscribers get practical AI news, tool picks, and honest notes on shipping with modern AI stacks. Subscribe free.

What AI news do you cover?

Model and IDE updates, vibe coding tool pricing, hosting and database options, and workflows that help builders ship faster — filtered for action, not hype. Read the latest on our posts page.

Who should subscribe?

Founders, creators, and side-project builders who use AI but don't call themselves developers. If you want vibe coding tips and AI news without the polished highlight reel, this newsletter is for you.

Is the newsletter free?

Yes. Enter your email on this page — no paywall. Partner links on the tools page are marked with a gift icon and disclosed in our copy.

Where can I find AI tools for vibe coding?

Browse 50+ tools — Cursor, Claude, Replit, Lovable, v0, n8n, Udemy, and more. Search by name and sort A–Z.

What tools do vibe coders use in 2026?

Most builders pair an AI IDE like Cursor with a frontier model (Claude, GPT, or Grok), plus hosting on Vercel and a database like Neon. Our tools directory lists what we actually use and recommend.

How can non-developers build an app with AI?

Start with a clear outcome, pick one AI coding assistant, and iterate in plain language — fix one feature at a time. Read our migration and stack guides for real examples of shipping without writing every line by hand.

What is the best AI coding assistant for beginners?

There is no single winner — it depends on your budget and workflow. Cursor is the most popular IDE for vibe coding; Claude and GPT excel at reasoning. Compare options in our tools page and follow AI news posts when models update.

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