Entrepreneur

Andrej Karpathy coined “vibe coding” in February 2025. A year later, he proposed a new name for how serious builders work with AI: agentic engineering. The AI still does most of the writing, but you direct it, test the results and fix what’s off. Here’s what the term means, how it differs from vibe coding, and why it matters for anyone building an app to publish.

AI app builders all promise an app from a prompt, but for most that means a website or a codebase to maintain. We compared eight popular tools (Lovable, Replit, FlutterFlow, Adalo, Bolt.new, Base44, Emergent and Bubble) on three questions: Is it truly native? Can you fix it yourself when the AI falls short? How hard is publishing? Here’s which builder fits when mobile is the goal, and when it isn’t.

Vibe coding, a term coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy in 2025, means building software by telling AI what you want and refining it through conversation. For no-code builders, that's a big shift. Instead of assembling your app one block at a time, you can start with a description and let AI generate the screens, design, and logic for you. That means faster iteration and a lower barrier to getting your idea in front of real users. You're still in charge, though. You decide what your app should do, whether it truly serves your users, and whether it works on a real device before you ship it. With Thunkable's AI Builder, you can vibe code a native mobile app from the start. You can refine it with prompts, blocks, or code, test it on your phone, and publish it to the App Store or Google Play.

The AI app builder field is crowded, and most of it stops at a web prototype. Here's an honest breakdown of what each tool is actually built for, and where Thunkable fits.

Using Thunkable, a non-technical founder saved over $65,000 in development costs and launched Sound AiSleep on the App Store all on her own.

Rukus began as a small personal project by Brooke Muse, who wanted a simpler way to practice guitar after time away. Using Thunkable, the idea quickly turned into a working app that could be tested, iterated on, and published without programming experience.

Showcasing the top no-code app creators of 2025 from the Thunkable community.

Most small business leaders don't think they need a mobile app. But they're wrong. Read more to learn about the major benefits of custom mobile apps.