Why A lot of people Got It Wrong About Lovable, V0, and Replit

Have you heard or seen the hot takes or stunning titles such as "Vibe coding is dead," "These companies are burning millions with nothing to show for it," "The bubble has burst."

Here's what the data actually shows: they're completely wrong.

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The Numbers Don't Lie

Sure, platforms like Lovable, V0, and Replit are posting unicorn valuations or explosive revenue growth. And yes, their tracking metrics have cooled from peak hype levels. But look at what's actually happening on the ground.

The previously hyped discussion over vibe coding seemed to cool down in 2025 Q4, roughly observing the trend from big names like Lovable and Replit

Google Trends Tell a Different Story

Pulling out Google Trends data and search for "vibe coding" for the past 30 days. It shows clearly, Vibe Coding is not dying—it's shifting. Now let’s extend that view to 12 months. You'll see something interesting: while search volume isn't hitting those early peak moments, it consistently spikes up from time to time. The interest is still there.

The Search Interest of Vibe coding and lovable Over time

What's really happening?

The chart shows that some users aren't searching for "vibe coding" anymore—they're going directly to Lovable.dev or Replit. They understand the underline meaning of “Vibe Coding”.

They've become sticky platforms. People found their workflow and stuck with it. Is that a sign of failure? that's a product-market fit to me.

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Zeabur's TakeOur’s Take:

At Zeabur, the evolution of "vibe coding" is seen as a natural market maturation, not a decline. The initial excitement surrounding AI-assisted development was just the first step. Now, we think the market is splitting into two distinct and growing trajectories, both of which are leading to more sophisticated and sustainable workflows.

The Two Trajectories: A Market Maturing, Not Dying

Based on observations from Zeabur users and broader search trends, we're seeing the market split into two clear paths—and both are growing:

Path 1: The Front-End Prototyping

Target Audiences: These users are perfectly happy with tools like Lovable and Replit.

Role	Use Case
Freelance Developer	Build MVPs or prototypes in minutes, not even hours
Startup Founder	Quickly validate app ideas without hiring a team
IT Manager	Create internal dashboards or workflows with clicks
Frontend Dev	Isolate and test new components or libraries.
Agency	Turn design concepts into interactive client demos.
Vibe Coders	Instantly visualize and experiment with creative ideas.

→ Lovable excels at design-heavy projects and rapid UI mockups. Its strength lies in quickly turning ideas into visual prototypes that look production-ready.

→ Replit offers a more code-centric environment with support for multiple languages. It's effective for quickly building and deploying smaller applications, striking a balance between AI assistance and developer control.

These platforms aren't failing—they're serving a real, sustained need.

Path 2: The Full-Stack Migration

Target Audience: Lovable user who are graduating from front-end vibe coding tools to full-stack development platforms.

Target Audiences:

Role	Use Case
Freelance Developer	Transition from prototype to a scalable MVP for clients.
Startup Founder	Evolve a validated idea into a market-ready application.
IT Manager	Scale internal tools from mockups to integrated solutions.
Frontend Dev	Add a functional backend to an existing UI prototype.
Agency	Convert client-approved designs into production-ready apps.
Vibe Coders	Turn a creative front-end project into a real, full-stack app.

The pattern is clear: Start with vibe coding, fall in love with the speed, then realize you need more power.

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Solutions: Full-Stack AI Development Environments

When projects grow in complexity or require more functionality, the limitations of front-end focused tools become apparent. This creates demand for platforms that can handle backend logic, databases, and DevOps. This is the natural next step for early stage developers.

What are the tools that we recommend?

• Cursor is an AI-first editor designed for professional developers and those who've outgrown simpler tools. It offers greater control over code and integrates into traditional development workflows, with strong focus on your entire project's context—not just making pretty buttons.
• Claude Code is another one that we also highly recommend by our developers which is rolled out by Anthropic, powerful agentic coding tool that handles complex, full-stack application development.

Ex Lovable user switch to cursor with supabase cli + MCP

Learn How to redeploy your beloved project with Self-Hosted Supabase and Zeabur

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The Migration Challenge: Where Most Builders Developers Get Stuck

Ling, Head of Operation hear at Zeabur, although he has no engineering background, with the AI coding tools , he still could deliver a fabulous front end and backend is offered by ghost and hosting on Zeabur, He wrote a reflection about how could he accomplish this stunning blog with the help of AI and as well as how easy Zeabur is to assist you to keep your beloved project alive.

Here's where the story gets interesting—and where most people abandon their projects.

Yes, You've built something beautiful in Lovable. You probably also sicked off the ridiculous pricing that makes you exported the code to Cursor. You've also figure there are better open source prebuilt project like ghost that implemented the ready to use backend logic, authentication, a database. Your app actually works in local now.

And then you hit the deployment wall.

Setting up servers, configuring CI/CD, wrestling with Docker, chatting with AI in order to figure environment variables at 2 AM—this is where the dream dies for most Vibe Coders. They came for vibe coding, they stayed for full-stack development, but they quit at DevOps.

This is Why Zeabur Is the Missing Piece

After building with Cursor, Claude Code or any other AI coding tools, Zeabur is coming to play, Here's why it matters:

Zeabur Agents - Your AI DevOps Engineer Imagine you just migrated your beloved project from Lovable to Cursor and want to get it live? Zeabur's one-click deployment makes it so much easier. No complicated config files, no DevOps degree required. Just connect your repo and you're done. It's like having an AI DevOps engineer who actually knows what they're doing.

Built-in CI/CD That Actually Works Push to GitHub and watch your app deploy automatically. Sure, you better set up GitHub Actions and spend hours debugging YAML files. Or you could just use Zeabur's built-in CI/CD that works out of the box. Your choice, but one of these options lets you ship faster and stay sane.

Zeabur AI Hub - All Your AI Models, One Bill Need API keys for Claude, GPT-5, or other AI models for your newly sophisticated app? Instead of juggling multiple subscriptions and billing accounts, Zeabur AI Hub gives you access to models from different vendors all in one place. Everything shows up on your Zeabur bill. Simple as that.

This aligns perfectly with our vision: AI agents for DevOps. More and more people are realizing they're trying to migrate their beloved projects to make them more prosperous—and here’s the exact arsenal for further development.

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The Bottom Line

The vibe coding bubble didn't burst—it expanded and upgraded. The initial excitement around creating user interfaces with simple prompts paved the way for a more sophisticated market.

Companies like Lovable successfully captured significant user bases by democratizing front-end development.

Everyone wants them projects into next phases.

We think the next phase of growth is being defined by platforms that provide end-to-end, full-stack solutions catering to increasingly complex needs—moving from entry hobbyist into solo-entrepreneur.

Your move: Start prototyping with vibe coding tools, build seriously with Cursor or Claude Code, and deploy effortlessly with Zeabur. That's the complete workflow that wins for next 5 yearsyear.

The people are obituaries for vibe coding? They're missing the forest for the trees. This isn't an ending—it's just the beginning of something much bigger.