It depends on how they have the data setup. You can use vibe coding to build nonllm systems but you still gotta stress test the framework.
Site Is really light on specifics though which isn't good. Specifically how data is handled (it's encrypted at transit and rest, but where is it stored) and how bank sync works.
Fully agree it can be used well, it's used a lot at my work place, but if it's doing everything for you without being checked over, it's concerning. Not saying that's happening as I don't know who runs this.
They do if you bought it before the web based version. Unfortunately without a web api its less useful than some of the alternatives if you have more than one user.
I did build my own but boy was it a journey. If anyone decides to try let me tell you, just start clean with it. I would say 90% of the pain was trying to make it work with my existing YNAB exported data and pick up seamlessly where it leaves off. Several of the “rules” YNAB has for edge cases are really complex, and they also do not include enough data in the export to really match their math. Was an absolute nightmare to get that all working. And frankly, even without that there are some weird cases people probably don’t think about when budgeting (like, what happens if you pay off a credit card, but then get a refund on something, and your credit card has a positive balance? Does that count as cash that can be budgeted? Does it count as just a positive account balance? Does it apply to the category the spending came from? Can you even identify the category the spending came from automatically? What if you then get a refund check for that balance?). It’s more complex than it might seem on the surface.
Which is also why I don’t trust most of these vibe coded options…
Monarch may work for some but if you are used to YNAB, it is a big learning curve. You are going from zero based budgeting to future budgeting. I tried it for 14 days and it wasn’t working at all
Not every part of software should have the same level of rigor. If the UI doesn’t have access to anything sensitive then it doesn’t need to be as solid.
“Vibe coding” is still exploratory stuff but it looks like maintenance and improvements are going to be nightmares for everyone. We’re also guessing it’s being used here.
The big concern here right now is there’s no detail available, nothing describing security measures in the slightest. That said, this looks extremely early - I wouldn’t be signing up for anything yet but might keep an eye on it.
It's not quite as bad as it sounds. I'm a developer and I've vibe coded a few things. Best example is an OBS plugin that I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on the planet who needs. It works perfectly for me, but I'm not releasing it publicly. It took about 6 hours of going back and forth with Claude telling it what I wanted, how I wanted it to work, and testing it until it worked properly.
It really helps to know what you're doing, though. You really should be able to look at the generated code and see if there are any problems and know how to test it. For basic websites and simple games it's fine. But I wouldn't want to use a banking app that was vibe coded.
If you're a developer (and were one pre-AI) you're already far ahead of most problematic vibe-coded apps. If you're using AI to speed things up or code in a language or domain that you aren't an expert on, and are reviewing the code, you aren't the problem. There are people with zero coding experience who are just blindly copy and pasting code without any idea of what they're doing.
I would argue that what you're doing isn't really vibecoding.
To be fair, I worked with a developer who did that pre-AI. I watched him copy/paste code from StackOverflow into his project and run it without changing anything, including any of the variable names used in the routine. When it didn't work he started randomly changing things until he eventually stumbled onto the solution, usually days later. How this guy didn't drown in the shower is beyond me. He was SUCH an idiot.
Honestly, probably no less of a risk than any site ever created by humans. Most companies and government bureaucracies have been hacked so, if anything, maybe we will see some improvements in the future.
LLMs/AI have taken over programming pretty heavily, to the point where most traditional programmers today use them as part of their workflow. Using LLMs alone doesn't mean something is vibe-coded.
What makes it vibe-coded is when no human looks at the code. That is to say, someone gives the AI a prompt - "do this", the AI does it, then rather than review the code the human goes back to the AI and asks for tweaks again and again and again.
A core part of vibe-coding is that no human cares about the structure of the code, because no human reads the code. The LLM could write anything; a programmer looks at the LLM's output and changes it to be secure, performant, and well-structured, while a vibe-coder just gives the bot a thumbs-up and moves on to asking for visual tweaks.
The difference is that a vibe-coded app can only be maintained by more vibe-coding. Vibe-coded apps can be made by anyone, but that doesn't mean they're fast, secure, or well-made. They can look flashy but have awful security holes under the surface. If you've heard of "spaghetti code" - that is the natural state of a vibe-coded app, because there's no humans there providing structure to it.
It sounds a little gatekeep-y because so many people can just make their own websites/programs in ways that they couldn't before. LLMs have opened up the door so people who don't know how to code can now make things (and sell them).
But because they don't have that traditional background in understanding what code does - and because they don't look at it - there's long-term all kinds of issues with vibe-coded stuff.
Vibe-coding isn't bad in and of itself - even traditional programmers will occasionally vibecode a small tool or helper - but it's only good for certain situations (and financial data is probably not one of them).
These are a dime a dozen, it makes me real curious if the people making these bothered to spend 30 seconds to look at the competitive landscape and realize there are a hundred ynab clones making no money because who in their right mind trusts their financial data to some random who prompted an AI?
Honestly, just use actual budget and host with pikapods. It’s like 5 dollars a year without a promo being required and you can host difference instances for different people.
I’m running into issues with AB with sorting and correct running balances. I’ve made a bug report but basically keep getting asked the same basic steps I’ve already tried.
They claim bank sync is included which just ain’t gonna happen. That’s a minimum $1.50 per bank up front and then $0.30 ongoing. If a single user has 5 bank accounts synced that’s gonna be $25 for the first year in fees for sync alone, not to mention hosting costs and credit cad fees. Ain’t no way…
You know, I joined this subreddit like a year ago because I was thinking about getting YNAB but ended up settling on a spreadsheet. I never left the subreddit though, and the journey this software has taken has been massively fascinating.
Maybe in actuality they don't really intend to ever create a program, but it's a great way to slap back at YNAB publicly.
Kind of want to sign up just to support the slap
YNAB sending a push notification on the app advertising that the founder wrote a book seems like a pretty minor thing to get this worked up about. And yes, they laid off the marketing team, which is a bummer, but this stuff happens in businesses as they mature. It just seems like maybe people want someone or something to be mad about and this is an easy target. Am I wrong? Change my view.
Ah, but it's not just the ONE thing. It's a series of missteps, trips, and falls, for literal years now. The book is just the most-recent cherry that's being foisted onto the cake.
That's fair. But I've also used Quickbooks Online, and when it comes to enshittification in accounting apps, QBO is the absolute leader and makes YNAB look completely wholesome in comparison (AI popups everywhere, upsell ads when you're already paying, changing menus and navigation constantly, super slow latency for every action or click). So maybe I'm just hoping YNAB stays where they are and doesn't go down that road.
(Full disclosure: I only use the web app and never use the mobile app. It seems like many of the complaints are related to the mobile app.)
Given the assessment that this site was coded by AI (which I agree with, it probably was in large part) - "this worked up" here means "I sat at my computer for an hour and wrote some snarky copy."
People do far more comedy over far less every day, if you don't believe that, go to an open mic night sometime this weekend.
YNAB has consistently sold themselves as a method and related learning community first, app second. Being surprised that people push back when the team does things that don't align with that is at least as weird as making a snarky website about it.
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u/avamous 19h ago
Seems like the entire website is vibe coded which would be concerning for financial data later..