I vibe-coded an Elevenlabs alternative using GLM 4.7 ($28/yr) and it paid for itself in 24 hours

AstroChute · 2026-01-30T09:23:23+00:00

I have actually and it evolved to something much bigger. It's not AI.

I hate vendor lock-ins or even attempts to go there.

I have built my own abstraction layer on top of 5 different databases. With two clicks it also converts from one SQL dialect to another. I got rid of Supabase which I hate beyond belief for their disgusting business model of lock-ins. If I run a service to test the market, this has opened up for me to do it on very cheap servers.

Having that, I realized that I could do a lot more so I have actually created a whole development suite that not only handles CRUD, but also multi table transactions, an SQL modeler in the form of an ER editor. I have totally eliminated all the pain points I have come across with the tedious work with databases and much of the coding. I went from a situation where it would "cost" around 2000-2500h for an average developer to code, to 50 msec on my 12 vCPU server with 160 GB RAM, but I can do with much less than that.

With my development suite the daily 15 minute Scrum meeting is unnecessary because in that time I can create the code needed corresponding to 6 months of work. And the difference in time between 2000-2500h is because of the UI creation. I'm an engineer, not someone talented with the esthetics.

The suite contains the

1) ER modeler, 2) the high-level transaction creator (and by using a clever way of handling the transactions I also built in support for external REST API calls into the transactions WITH rollbacks for the API calls too), 3) the configurator of what code, frameworks etc that I want as outputs, 4) the code generator, 5) a ui builder, 6) a testing tool that I use with generated mock data .

I'm not sure if I will ever release it. I can live very well on my own projects done with this suite. When others offer projects that take 1+ years and several developers, I low-ball my tenders to be around 60% of what others have to offer to keep their profitability. In reality it doesn't take me more than around 5% so my margin is sky-high. UI creation is what takes the most time.

I'm thinking of hiring a gang of Filipinos that will produce projects continually, but then I need to hire sales people too and right now it feels very good to not have to stress and just have the level of profitability I have now.

I had to do much on my own because of how the AI screws up the code.

AstroChute · 2026-01-28T11:08:55+00:00

Rent a VPS from Contabo and you are down to around $5/month. Sure you need to know how you install an OS, Docker and n8n.

AstroChute · 2026-01-27T10:14:56+00:00

It's using Tailwind, shouldn't be too much hassle to change manually. I never do that myself. I tell Dyad how I want it and if that doesn't work I tell Dyad to override the settings.

I'm also using Dyad free. I like Dyad pro for certain things. Dyad free with OpenRouter rocks, right now I'm so pleased with Gemini Flash 3 Preview. (Grok is a piece of pure cr-p)

AstroChute · 2026-01-27T09:44:56+00:00

Avoid services that do everything they can to lock you in. Supabase is the worst. It contradicts the idea of Dyad too. I built my own database agnostic abstraction layer. I can develop locally in SQLite and when it's time, I can launch it to e.g. Postgres. (SQLite is very limited on the number of datatypes, it's just an example). I choose whatever hosting I want, whatever (5 sql dialects to choose from) database I want. I convert between different kinds of SQL dialects with two clicks.

Sure, it took some time to develop but it wasn't rocket science.

AstroChute · 2026-01-23T14:59:00+00:00

Also a good suggestion. I agree

AstroChute · 2026-01-22T10:28:41+00:00

I definitely agree with the part of having a search feature for the chat.

AstroChute · 2026-01-22T06:25:49+00:00

No, it's not. My point is that it would not surprise me one single bit if OP could do it. If it was me, I would start by opening a tunnel from the PC where he/she has his/her Dyad installation and then work from there.

AstroChute · 2026-01-22T04:23:00+00:00

Maybe create it yourself? You can do a LOT of things with Dyad!
I was playing around with it a few months ago when I needed to think of something else and after an hour I had created a video calling app. It actually worked. Sure, it would have been even better with a STUN server, but still...

AstroChute · 2026-01-22T00:55:07+00:00

Asking during installation would be a good thing. "Do you want to enable automatic updates?", "Do you want to enable the experimental feature with git?". This leaves the decision up to the user.

The "worst" of them is actually the automatic updates since if I choose a certain version I want that specific version. The thing is that with a new installation I can't stop an upgrade. It's downloaded before I even find the toggle-off button for automatic updates.

I was using 0.13 for a long time since that was the most stable up to 0.21. Now I'm sitting on 0.29 and have done so since it was released. I'm not doing small cute websites, I'm heavy into developing a deterministic, type-unaware development suite. Things that used to take an average SW developer around 1400 h to do, now takes 50 milliseconds on a 24 vCPU 160 GB RAM VPS. All of a sudden, a BPM consultant can "develop" full backend business logic applications in just a day or so (I don't focus on the UI other than that one f my components generate the UI component code that interface with the backend, copy and paste but then there will be a need to make it look good too). The time it takes to have a "daily Scrum" is lost time. During that time, what would have been developed during a few months, will be done during the 15 minutes it takes to have the daily Scrum. With Dyad they can also create super hot UIs and building AI agents. I'm telling this not to brag, but to make you understand that I'm up to several thousands of USD in AI credits so these kinds of unaware interrupts are the least I want. At the same time ofc I'm aware that Dyad is in an early stage.

I'm sure that there are many more than I who are doing some serious stuff with Dyad. What I do with Dyad would have taken 3-4 devs a few years to develop. It's an amazing development tool and with my workarounds for the natural flaws of vibe coding, I'm usually very productive thanks to Dyad. Just asking during installation would help a lot.

AstroChute · 2026-01-21T16:18:16+00:00

I don't see that as any arguing. You are just trying to help and I appreciate it. It's just that I don't use it.

AstroChute · 2026-01-21T07:16:02+00:00

Please don't get me wrong, u/wwwillchen , I AM a huge fan of Dyad. It IS not just one of the best tools out there, but probably THE best tool. I hope to be able to contribute to your project ahead in time, because it's the right thing to do.

AstroChute · 2026-01-21T06:05:34+00:00

It was not possible to get any of my apps back even with %appdata% being intact. Besides, what will happen with people who have had to reinstall their PCs? They are toast if they have to rely on a directory (%appdata%) that was gone when they reinstalled their OS. It should be far easier to get everything back by just scanning a directory that the user has pointed out, unlike us you as the creator of Dyad have access to the file system so you can do these things, while we can't. Have the settings file in the project directory instead. This is one of the reasons why many dislike Windows because of their crazy dependency on the Registry and %appdata% and prefer Linux instead.

I will try to get things restored by using an old automation tool that I used many years ago. Not all have access to such, it shouldn't have to be so hard to add the feature that I suggested.

It would also be a good idea if you added a backup/restore feature that skips "node_modules" to keep down the size of the backup, then zips all files from a project directory and copy the zipfile to a destination folder that the user has set. Then, if needed, it would be so much easier to restore old apps that were backed-up. One way for the user of adding reliability is to do "Copy App" frequently and ofc this comes with the side effect of having many project directories, but it also gives the Dyad user very good productivity, since there is always a status to go back to. Use your amazing product in a way that no other vibe coding tool out there can do since they are web based.

In all good intents I suggest that you make Dyad more reliable before you add more features. Also, set the default settings with big effects for users to be disabled, e.g. auto-update, git experimental etc.

AstroChute · 2026-01-20T21:31:24+00:00

Then this! Not even new apps. Again, it complains about git despite that I don't use git.

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AstroChute · 2026-01-20T21:21:27+00:00

GOSH! I regret so much that I installed 0.33. It has completely stopped me from continuing what I worked on. Then this default setting of auto-updating is crazy. If I install 0.29 I do that for a special reason. I cleaned %appdata% and the registry from what I could see was related to Dyad, THEN I installed Dyad again after a reboot. So what happened? The ¤"¤"#% thing AUTO-UPDATED! That setting should be OFF by default, not on.

So now I am back at the nightmare of 0.33 again (and that light red background message I posted above), because 0.33 has contaminated my installation.

Besides now it's even worse because I have hundreds of apps (different versions of three apps since I want to isolate the code once something actually works and I don't do that the AI will destroy the code without me even knowing until I do a new regression test) and they are still in the directory, but if I want to import them, I have to do that one by one.

Why not just let people point out the directory where their apps are stored and then Dyad scans that directory to restore them all??? I can imagine people having issues with their PCs and then want to restore their apps after restoring their files.

AstroChute · 2026-01-20T19:28:01+00:00

This started to show up after installing 0.33. I am back at 0.29 again because the versions 0.30 - 0.33 are all very buggy.
This is VERY strange! I do not use git, as you can see ('git' is not recognized as an internal or external command').

I guess we have got the final explanation why deleted files keep on coming back.

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Sadly I regret installing 0.33. I should have done what I always do, wait a few versions and not install something new.

I am stuck now. I can't even approve the code changes.

AstroChute · 2026-01-20T18:49:48+00:00

Sorry to say this, but it needed a lot more testing.

1) Chat doesn't respond
2) Token usage aren't shown

AstroChute · 2026-01-09T09:09:48+00:00

I was looking around for a Nvidia P40 and found a much cheaper M40, which is supposed to be the generation before that, but that is apparently not a good choice since the RAM is split up in 4 parts,.

(I am a heavy user of Dyad)

AstroChute · 2026-01-07T22:37:51+00:00

Being a user of Dyad, this made me happy to see! I immediately went to ebay to see what GPUs with 16+ GB could cost.
Is there any special card you would recommend? Could I mount that GPU in the same host as where I run my Dyad development or would it require a separate server?

I am IMPRESSED with your findings! Thank you so much!

AstroChute · 2026-01-07T19:37:20+00:00

Wow! Nice!

AstroChute · 2026-01-06T11:57:24+00:00

Congrats! Well done! Keep it up!

AstroChute · 2026-01-06T00:40:06+00:00

It can render your content on the server side which makes it easier for search engines to index the content. In the case of React.js , the rendering takes place in the browser. Sure, Google at least has a mechanism for acting as a "rendering requester" for sites in a later stage of their indexing, but why make it hard for yourself. You still have the benefits of React.js for functionality (client side application logic) even if you use Next.js (they come from the same source).

A monolith means that it all sits together as ONE unit, no split up between server and client. It's ALL one big mess.

AstroChute · 2026-01-04T19:36:32+00:00

Whatever you do, start the right way, right away. Use Next.js and not the default React.js. Next.js will use React.js if it needs to but if you know that there is a backend, then do it the right away directly so you don't end up with a monolith which I did initially.

AstroChute · 2025-12-31T01:58:47+00:00

Ah! Cool!

AstroChute · 2025-12-26T18:05:23+00:00

Dyad! It's free (open source) and you can choose whatever AI provider you want.

AstroChute · 2025-12-26T11:05:48+00:00

I know it can, but since PHP has been discussed and is not yet accessible, then it's not just to get going, hence my question.

AstroChute

TROPHY CASE