Back in early 2025, AI vibe coding was being called a revolution in website and app creation. A few text prompts and a finished product. Investors poured in millions, users massively subscribed to services like Lovable, Vercel’s v0, Bolt.new, or Replit.
Back in early 2025, AI vibe coding was being called a revolution in website and app creation. A few text prompts and a finished product. Investors poured in millions, users massively subscribed to services like Lovable, Vercel’s v0, Bolt.new, or Replit.
But new data from Barclays shows that the boom is starting to fade. Traffic on these platforms has dropped significantly:
Lovable (which boasted $100 million in ARR in June) fell by 40%,
Vercel’s v0 is down 64% since May,
Bolt.new — minus 27%,
even Replit, which was considered the most «viable», shows a slight decline.
Analysts cited by Business Insider explain: most users were «temporary subscribers» — they came quickly to test the hype and left just as quickly. Meanwhile, «heavy users» generated huge infrastructure costs, which forced startups to raise prices, and the price increase slowed the growth of new audiences.
Bolt.new CEO Eric Simons says bluntly: «Everyone has one problem right now — a very high level of customer churn. We need to build a business that retains, not just collects quick subscriptions.»
Despite the decline, it’s too early to write off vibe coding. The tools are still in the experimental stage, mostly tested by AI enthusiasts, but they are still far from being mass-marketed. The main problem is the «last 5% of polishing», without which the code turns into chaos.
Meanwhile, big players are just entering the niche: Wix bought AI startup Base44, and GoDaddy is also eyeing this market.
Barclays analysts believe that vibe coding will remain part of the AI discussion until at least 2026. But whether it will become a real alternative to classic development tools is an open question.
