Vibe coding (describing what you want in plain words and letting a model write the code instead of typing it yourself) has crept into how a lot of people start their first projects. With a portfolio the temptation is big: in a couple of afternoons you already have something to show, instead of spending weeks fighting with CSS. But like any shortcut, it’s worth thinking about what you gain and what you lose before betting everything on it.
Pros
Trying things stops hurting. Trying a completely different look (from eighties neon to something minimal, from a synthwave grid to a flat design) no longer eats a whole afternoon of hand-written CSS. It takes a few prompts. And that changes more than it seems: you can throw out an idea that isn’t working without feeling like you’re throwing out hours of work, and you get to the version that fits sooner.
It’s easier to start. Sitting down in front of a blank editor with no idea where to begin is one of the biggest things that holds back anyone who is learning. Sitting down in front of a chat and saying what you want to make, much less. And a portfolio often stalls at “I’ll do it once I know more”, so that difference decides whether the project starts or stays in your head forever.
You practice something else. Not writing every line, but reading what someone else wrote and deciding whether it makes sense. When you learn to code on your own you almost never practice that, and it also changes the usual question: it’s no longer “can I write this?” but “can I tell if this is written well?” It’s an uncomfortable question, honestly.
Cons
It can hand you code you don’t understand, if you don’t ask. A model doesn’t warn you when something is delicate. A navigation menu closing with the Escape key, giving focus back to whoever opened it, Tab not escaping to hidden links: none of that usually comes out right the first time unless you ask for it. And if you don’t know it’s missing, you don’t ask. Vibe coding doesn’t replace knowing what to ask.
Changing your mind gets too cheap. When trying a new look costs one prompt instead of one afternoon, it’s very easy to spend weeks fiddling with the look of something that’s still empty inside: one background after another, one font after another, while the important part, the projects and what you can really do, still isn’t written. Changing the visuals became easy. Writing the content costs what it always did.
The question of who did the work matters more on a portfolio than on any other project. A portfolio is the proof you show that you can build something. If in an interview someone asks why you picked a certain color or how an animation works, you need to be able to answer for real, not repeat whatever the model left in a comment.
Where I land
Not for it or against it, really. For trying things fast, and for starting when the blank page feels too scary, vibe coding works great. As a substitute for understanding what’s underneath, it’s a disaster, and the line between the two is thinner than it looks at first.
If you’re going to build your portfolio this way, my advice is simple. Read every change before accepting it. Ask “why” more often than you feel you need to. And don’t settle until you can explain any line as if you had written it yourself, because in an interview, the one who answers for that project is you.