Vibe coding platform Anything arrives, our hands-on suggests caution
The burgeoning field of “vibe coding,” where artificial intelligence translates natural language prompts into functional software, has been heralded as a paradigm shift, promising to democratize app development. Leading this charge is the startup Create, which has officially launched its “vibe coding” platform, Anything, declaring it production-ready at version 1.0. The company boasts ambitious claims, suggesting that creating applications is now “as easy as selling t-shirts” and that users can go “from idea to App Store to first customer in days.”
Vibe coding, a term popularized by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy in early 2025, redefines the software development workflow by shifting the primary role from manual code writing to guiding an AI assistant. This innovative approach aims to accelerate development and make app building accessible even to those with limited programming experience, allowing creators to focus on the desired outcome rather than intricate syntax. Proponents argue it enables small teams, particularly startups, to rapidly prototype and launch products, fostering quick iteration and flexibility. Indeed, the recent release of OpenAI’s GPT-5 model in August 2025 further underscores the advancements in AI’s capability to assist in software creation, including “vibe coding.”
Create, founded in 2020 by former Google product managers Marcus Lowe and Dhruv Amin, positions Anything as the embodiment of this vision. The company asserts its “Frontier AI agent” is so reliable that users can build entire applications without ever needing to inspect the underlying code. Anything reportedly supports both web and mobile applications, with all hosting managed by the platform, though users also have the option to download the generated code for external use. Create claims a substantial user base, citing 30,000 monthly active users and processing over 20,000 projects daily, painting a picture of a robust and widely adopted system.
However, The Register’s recent hands-on evaluation of Anything paints a starkly different picture, suggesting a significant gap between Create’s lofty claims and the platform’s current reality. Despite being declared “production-ready,” the quick test generated a “host of errors” and failed to produce a working application. The preview screen remained stuck on “Loading,” and inspection of the logs revealed “hundreds of errors.” Attempts to prompt the AI to fix these issues were met with explanations of “missing API endpoints,” and subsequent efforts to resolve the problems proved futile, with the system mismanaging user states and permissions, such as allowing volunteers access to administrative screens. The generated application, which uses JavaScript with React and Next.js and a Neon serverless Postgres database, simply did not function as intended.
This early stumble for Anything highlights a critical tension within the nascent field of vibe coding: the immense promise of rapid, accessible development versus the persistent challenges of reliability, debugging, and maintaining code quality when the underlying logic is largely abstracted away. While vibe coding offers undeniable speed, especially for initial prototyping, its efficacy for production-ready, complex applications remains under scrutiny. As the “Weekend Wonder” phase for AI-generated applications often gives way to the need for solidifying foundational code to prevent churn, Create’s Anything platform will need to demonstrate substantial improvements in stability and error handling to truly live up to its ambitious promise of making app creation as effortless as selling t-shirts.