Rebecca Yu developed a dining app in seven days, motivated by the difficulty friends had in deciding where to eat.
Using tools like Claude and ChatGPT, Yu created a dining app to recommend restaurants based on shared interests.
Yu noted that individuals without technical backgrounds were successfully building apps through “vibe-coding,” prompting her to develop her own during a week off.
Her resulting web app, Where2Eat, assists her and her friends in selecting dining spots.
Yu exemplifies a rising trend where AI advancements enable individuals to create personal apps. While many develop web applications, there’s a growing movement towards “vibe-coding” mobile apps for personal devices, with some Apple developers even using TestFlight for beta versions.
This new approach to app development is often termed micro apps, personal apps, or fleeting apps. These applications are designed for individual use or a small group, existing only as long as needed by the creator, and are not meant for broad distribution or commercial sale.
For instance, founder Jordi Amat created a temporary web gaming app for his family during the holidays, which he deactivated after their vacation concluded.
Shamillah Bankiya, a partner at Dawn Capital, is developing a personal podcast translation web app. Similarly, Darrell Etherington, a VP at SBS Comms and former TechCrunch writer, is also creating his own. Etherington noted that many acquaintances utilize tools like Claude Code, Replit, Bolt, and Lovable for specific app development.
An artist mentioned creating a “vice tracker” to monitor personal consumption of hookahs and drinks on weekends.
Even professional developers are engaging in “vibe-coding” for personal projects. Software engineer James Waugh, for example, developed a web app planning tool to support his cooking hobby.
Web apps and mobile
The emergence of micro apps is evident, driven by tools like Claude Code and Lovable that simplify app creation without extensive coding expertise. Legand L. Burge III, a computer science professor at Howard University, describes these apps as highly context-specific, addressing niche requirements and then “disappearing when the need is no longer present.”
Burge III compared this phenomenon to social media trends that appear and then fade, but applied to software itself.
Yu expressed excitement about the current era, noting she has six more app ideas she intends to develop.
Creating web apps without extensive coding has long been possible through no-code platforms like Bubble and Adalo, predating the popularity of LLMs. The significant development now is the increasing capability to build personal, temporary mobile apps, alongside the growing understanding that app creation can be achieved simply by describing desired functionality in natural language.
Mobile micro apps present more challenges than web apps, primarily because installing an iPhone app typically requires an App Store download and a paid Apple Developer account. However, new mobile “vibe-coding” startups such as Anything (which secured $11 million, led by Footwork) and VibeCode (which raised a $9.4 million seed round from Seven Seven Six) are emerging to assist individuals in developing mobile applications.
Christina Melas-Kyriazi, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures, likened this period of app creation to the rise of social media and Shopify, where the ease of creating online content or stores led to a surge in small sellers.
Good enough for one
Despite their potential, micro apps face challenges. The costs associated with subscriptions for building and sharing code can be high for a single app. App development can also be time-consuming; Yu found her dining app tedious, relying on ChatGPT and Claude for coding decisions. She noted that efficiency improved significantly once she mastered prompting and issue resolution.
Quality concerns also exist, as personal apps might contain bugs or security vulnerabilities, making them unsuitable for mass distribution without further refinement.
Nevertheless, the era of personal app development holds considerable promise, particularly as AI and model capabilities in reasoning, quality, and security continue to advance.
Software engineer Waugh recounted building a logger app for a friend experiencing heart palpitations, enabling her to record incidents for her doctor. He described it as an excellent example of bespoke personal software for tracking important information.
Nick Simpson, another founder, developed an app to automatically pay parking tickets after scanning them, a solution to San Francisco’s challenging parking situation. As a registered Apple developer, his app is in beta on TestFlight, and he noted growing interest from friends.
Burge III suggests these apps offer “exhilarating opportunities” for businesses and creators to develop “hyper-personalized situational experiences.”
Etherington anticipates a future where individuals might forgo monthly app subscriptions in favor of building their own personal-use applications.
Melas-Kyriazi envisions personal, fleeting apps being utilized similarly to how spreadsheets like Google Sheets or Excel were historically employed.
She believes these apps will bridge the gap between simple spreadsheets and comprehensive products.
Media strategist Hollie Krause created her own app to track allergies, finding existing doctor-recommended apps unsatisfactory.
Despite lacking technical experience, she completed the web app quickly. Now, she and her husband use two Claude-built web apps: one for allergies and sensitivities, and another for household chores.
Krause, disliking Excel, decided to build a household app, which she hosted on Tiiny.host and made accessible on their cellphones.
Krause believes “vibe coding” will foster innovation and problem-solving for underserved communities. She plans to beta-test her allergy health app with the goal of eventually releasing it to a wider audience.
Her aim is for the app to assist individuals struggling with daily life and provide access for caregivers, expressing confidence that “vibe coding” enables her to help others.
