The Dirty Secret of No-Code and Vibe Coding
Real quotes from real founders. Real disasters. Real money lost.
“I do feel imprisoned by my vibe coded apps. I've lost control of them. I don't understand the code that was written well enough to work on it myself any more. So now I'm at the mercy of the AI to maintain it.”
@zmmmmm
Hacker News
The 8 Deadly Sins of Software Platforms
Click each to reveal real quotes from founders, developers, and IT leaders who learned these lessons the hard way.
These aren't edge cases. These are patterns.
The Scalability Cliff
Growth = Rewrite. Every Single Time.
$500K+
Average rebuild cost
1000+
User threshold for pain
“What I've seen is it really depends on objectives and costs. How far do you want to take this project? What is the end user objective (if it's over 1000 users Nocode is a huge Pain).”
@SPAC
“Very little reusable material for V2 of the platform—given that we had new designs done, it was pretty much different in every way and had to be started from scratch.”
Fintech Startup Founder
“Can we build graph, wide-scale, document-oriented data models with no code? This is not only ignorance at its peak but also laughable.”
@techPackets
Key Takeaway
Companies report spending $500K-$750K+ to rebuild platforms that couldn't scale.
The Investor Problem
VCs See Through No-Code. Do You?
“Investors often view Bubble's proprietary nature as a red flag, lacking transparency and scalability proof, especially for Series A or B rounds where $1M+ valuations are at stake.”
Industry Analysis
“Most companies looking to purchase your app will not move forward if you depend on something like Bubble or all your automations are done through a 3rd party platform.”
@BlakeRunyon
“After my exit, they hired an engineer at $250k salary to recreate the product in the traditional method. 3 months later he still didn't get close to having a full solution... They ended up spending another $500k on offshore dev shop.”
Anonymous Founder
Key Takeaway
Your exit strategy is compromised before you start.
Enterprise Compliance Gaps
SOC-2? GDPR? FedRAMP? Good Luck.
“We had to move away from Retool based on un-addressed vulnerabilities found in their on-prem container. Unfortunately, it looks like Retool is not quite ready for deployment in environments with higher compliance requirements (FedRAMP, SOC2).”
Enterprise IT Review
“SOC-2 requirements state we need certain headers on our website but Webflow is actually blocking us from being able to add the required headers. Their rationale is that we have to upgrade to 'enterprise lite' for $15k annually.”
Anonymous
“Bubble has been aware that they do not currently allow any EU users to legally store data for many many years now. Bubble will promise updates and features but they will often arrive 6 months later, half baked, full of bugs.”
Anonymous
Key Takeaway
Enterprise customers require compliance you can't deliver—and can't modify the platform to achieve.
Migration Horror Stories
The Horror Stories That Keep IT Leaders Awake
2/3
Migrations exceed budget
50%+
Take longer than expected
“DO NOT ALERT SALESFORCE.COM THAT YOU PLAN TO LEAVE. This will set in motion a two-pronged campaign. First your sales rep will start hounding you daily to reconsider. Also it is my belief the account gets flagged for support making the opening of the API for migration either very expensive or not possible.”
Steve Mordue MVP
“At 3:47 AM on a Tuesday, I got the phone call every database engineer dreads. Our Series C startup had just lost $2.4 million in revenue because a Postgres migration script had corrupted our primary customer billing table. The CTO's exact words were unprintable.”
Anonymous
“An estimated two-thirds of all data migration undertakings exceed their initial budget, and over half take longer than expected.”
Elogic
“After ten months, we decided to terminate the agreement with the marketing company. However, the marketing company refused to give us access to our data. Instead, they threatened to delete it if we terminated the agreement.”
Anonymous
Key Takeaway
Companies report spending $500K-$1M+ on migration projects that still don't replicate all features of the original system.
The Build vs. Buy Paralysis
Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't
Building is too slow and expensive. Buying leads to lock-in. Until now, there was no third option.
56%
Have purchase regret
“With the rapid rise of AI and the decreasing cost of software development, a custom-built CRM is now a far better investment. For what Salesforce costs annually, you could hire a developer to create a tailored system that fits your business.”
Byron Bedford, CEO
“With SaaS you mostly give away the chance to benefit from the near zero marginal cost of software... It's only when you've succeeded and scaled that it becomes a problem.”
foundart
“You survived long enough to need to scale in part by keeping costs low and one way you did that was by using SaaS services instead of building. That was smart. As the business grew, at least one or two of those SaaS services got so entwined into daily operations that there is now no way to replace them without a lengthy, risky, and expensive migration project. The SaaS problem is a negative side effect of your success.”
foundart
“56% of organisations have a high degree of 'purchase regret' when it comes to their largest tech-related purchase in the prior two years.”
Gartner
The Sovereignty Crisis
Your Data, Their Rules
“Data sovereignty is not a buzzword, it's survival.”
Jon Cosson
“When a vendor fails, who owns your source code? What happens to your customer data? And most urgently: do you have the ability to rebuild without them?”
CTO Magazine
“Recent events, such as Builder.ai's abrupt collapse, highlight how quickly overreliance on third-party platforms can unravel. The platform's clients found themselves locked out of their applications, their data trapped or lost, and their code inaccessible—all due to a vendor failure they didn't control.”
CTO Magazine
“Paid for the subscription but they did not give me access to the software. On top of that they stole all my data.”
Sandeep Singh Johal
Key Takeaway
If you can't export your code and data at any time, you don't own your business—you're renting it.
The Psychological Toll
The Real Cost Nobody Talks About
Beyond the business impact, there's a human cost to building on platforms you can't control.
“I don't even know what questions to ask the AI to get back into it, I'm so disconnected from it. It's exhausting to think about getting back into it; I'd rather just start from scratch.”
@stantonius
Hacker News
“I want work to feel like a training session where you get fairly rewarded for your efforts with better understanding, not like a slot machine where you passively hope it gets it right next time.”
@biql
Hacker News
“I've used Sugar CRM and also MS Dynamics which I must confess I thought wasn't great. OMG Salesforce is completely AWFUL, you need to study it for HOURS to do even the simplest of things... WHY??? It's a nightmare and I am trapped in it...”
shropshirepilot
Trustpilot • Salesforce
“I strongly regret ever signing up with Salesforce. Had I taken the time to read the reviews beforehand, I would have saved myself a great deal of frustration and financial stress.”
Amit Taneja
Trustpilot • Salesforce
“Since I had sunken so much time into it I felt pretty bad afterwards that not only did the thing it made not end up being shippable, but I hadn't benefitted as a human being while working on it. I had no new skills to show. It was just a big waste of time.”
@WhyOhWhyQ
Hacker News
“The harsh reality hit: when your entire business runs on code you don't understand, you're not an entrepreneur—you're just hoping nothing breaks.”
FinalRoundAI
Analysis
“We're counting down the days until our contract is up, and I would strongly advise any business—especially smaller or leaner teams—to think twice (or three times) before locking into a long-term agreement with Salesforce.”
Anonymous
G2 Review • Salesforce
These aren't just business problems. They're stealing your time, your peace of mind, and your sense of control.
What Everyone Is Asking For
Based on our research, users consistently express these unmet needs
True code ownership
I want to export my code and run it anywhere
Transparent, predictable pricing
No surprise charges, no hostage situations
Genuine scalability
Growth shouldn't mean starting over
Tools that teach, not obscure
I want to understand what I'm building
Security by default
Production-ready from day one
Exit strategy built-in
My work is mine, forever
Data sovereignty
My data lives where I decide
No migration tax
Switching shouldn't cost more than staying
“CTOs must insist on clear language that guarantees: Source code ownership... Data access and format transparency... Escrow or fallback terms... Without these clauses, your organization is one acquisition or outage away from losing core operational capabilities.”
— CTO Magazine, Article
There's a reason we built AlgorithmShift.
Deep Dives by Platform
Find quotes about your specific platform and see why others are leaving
5 quotes about Salesforce
“The only reason we use it is because the directive came from above; Salesforce feels like Oracle to me in that it gets sold to the higher level execs who never actually use it, and it gets forced on everyone else.”
Anonymous
“STAY AWAY, STAY AWAY, STAY AWAY. This company is only about making money, zero interest in actually helping you grow your business.”
Hans Queisser
“Sadly, Salesforce is becoming the SAP of the CRM world.”
Cyber Risk Leader
“We've been using Salesforce for over a decade, spending around £60,000 per year on the platform. As the CEO of a company that relies heavily on CRM systems, I can say with confidence that I would not recommend Salesforce to most end users.”
Byron Bedford, CEO
“I strongly regret ever signing up with Salesforce. Had I taken the time to read the reviews beforehand, I would have saved myself a great deal of frustration and financial stress.”
Amit Taneja
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