Vibe Coding vs Squarespace’s Drag-and-Drop Editor: Which One Should You Use for Your Website?
If you hang around tech Twitter / X lately, you’ve probably seen people bragging that they “vibe-coded” an entire app in a weekend.
At the same time, regular business owners are still happily dragging and dropping sections in Squarespace and launching perfectly fine websites without touching a single line of code.
So which path makes sense for your website?
Let’s break down vibe coding vs a Squarespace website built with its Fluid Engine drag-and-drop editor – and where each option shines.
What is “vibe coding” anyway?
“Vibe coding” is a relatively new term popularized by Andrej Karpathy and then picked up by the broader tech world. In short:
You describe what you want in natural language, and an AI system generates the code for you. You mostly trust the AI and iterate by “vibes” rather than carefully reviewing all the code.
It’s usually done inside tools like Lovable, Replit, Cursor, v0, etc., where you can chat with an AI and get a working app or website scaffold in minutes. Lovable, for example, describes vibe coding as building apps by chatting about your idea instead of hand-coding every component.
The technique has become mainstream enough that “vibe coding” now appears in dictionaries and in mainstream tech media as a recognized AI-assisted development style.
Key traits of vibe coding:
You mostly interact with a chatbot/AI interface
The AI creates front-end, back-end, database, and hosting setup for you
You often don’t fully understand the generated code – you just test, tweak prompts, and iterate
Great for prototypes, MVPs, internal tools
Risky for mission-critical, long-lived production systems if nobody audits the code for quality and security (Wikipedia)
What is Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor?
Squarespace is a fully hosted website platform: design, content, hosting, security, and updates are all bundled together. You start with a professionally designed template, then customize it using their visual editor.
On modern Squarespace 7.1 sites, that visual editor is called Fluid Engine – a grid-based drag-and-drop layout system for desktop and mobile. It lets you add, move, and resize blocks (text, images, buttons, galleries, etc.) directly on the page without writing code. (Squarespace)
Recently, Squarespace also introduced Blueprint AI, an AI website builder that generates a starting layout from a few answers, which you then refine with the same drag-and-drop tools. (Squarespace)
Key traits of Squarespace:
Hosted platform with built-in templates, hosting, SSL, updates
Drag-and-drop layout with Fluid Engine for 7.1 sites
Built-in SEO settings, blogging, ecommerce, booking, member areas, etc.
Designed so that non-developers can manage content long-term
Can be extended with custom code by an expert when needed (CSS, JavaScript, advanced integrations)
TL;DR comparison – vibe coding vs Squarespace
Here’s the high-level comparison if you’re deciding where to build your next website:
Aspect Vibe Coding (Lovable, Cursor, etc.) Squarespace (Fluid Engine) Main idea AI writes your app/website code from prompts You design visually with drag-and-drop inside a hosted platform Speed to first prototype Extremely fast for a working prototype Very fast for a marketing site or portfolio Who it’s for Technical founders / dev-curious people willing to debug Business owners, creators, agencies, non-technical teams Control over code Very high – you own full source (if you can manage it) Limited – you control layout/content, not platform internals Maintenance You (or your dev) must maintain/secure the codebase Squarespace handles hosting, security, updates Content editing Often more like a dev tool than a CMS Designed for non-technical content editors Risk profile Higher – AI-generated code can hide bugs/security issues Lower – battle-tested platform with guardrails Best uses Prototypes, internal tools, highly custom apps Marketing sites, blogs, online stores, personal brands
Where vibe coding shines
Vibe coding really is exciting when used in the right context.
1. Rapid prototyping and MVPs
If you’re a startup founder who wants to test an idea fast, vibe coding is ideal:
Describe your idea → get a working app
Hook up a database and auth in a few prompts
Ship an MVP to early users without hiring a full team
You can iterate quickly, throw away bad experiments, and try again – exactly what you need in the validation phase.
2. Internal tools and “software for one”
Vibe coding is also great for internal dashboards, little utilities, or personal tools – the kind of things that don’t need a marketing homepage, content editor, or SEO. Think:
A custom inventory dashboard for your team
A reporting tool that pulls data from multiple APIs
A private app that automates a specific workflow in your business
These are often used only by you or your small team, so if you’re willing to maintain them (or hire a dev later), vibe coding can be very powerful.
3. Power users who already understand coding
If you’re an experienced developer, vibe coding can speed you up:
You still review and clean up the AI code
You use AI as a “typing accelerator,” not as an untouchable oracle
You keep architectural control while delegating boilerplate
In that mode, vibe coding is less “pure vibes” and more like a super-charged IDE.
Where Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor wins
For many real-world businesses, however, a Squarespace website is simply the better, safer, and more cost-effective choice.
1. You need a marketing site that just works
If your goal is:
A brand website
A portfolio
A blog
An online store or bookings system
…then Squarespace gives you nearly everything you need out of the box, with clean templates and a visual editor that non-technical people can understand.
You don’t worry about:
Servers
Framework updates
Security patches
SSL certificates
Deployment pipelines
Squarespace handles the infrastructure and ongoing maintenance for you.
2. Non-technical teams can edit content
This part is huge and often overlooked by early-stage founders: who will manage the site after launch?
With Squarespace:
Your team can log in and update text, images, pages, products, and blog posts
Content is edited in a visual interface, not in code
Permissions and roles are already built in
With a vibe-coded custom site:
You might have a basic admin panel (if the AI created one well)
Or you might be editing JSON, config files, or manually pushing changes
Any non-trivial change may require a developer intervention
For most small-to-medium businesses, this alone makes Squarespace a better long-term choice.
3. Risk, security, and compliance
AI-generated code can be:
Messy and hard to understand
Inconsistent in patterns and structure
Vulnerable to security issues if no one audits it properly
Squarespace, on the other hand:
Runs on a managed, battle-tested infrastructure
Has a large user base and commercial incentive to patch security issues quickly
Gives you guardrails that make it harder to break things accidentally
If you’re dealing with payments, memberships, or sensitive user data and you don’t have an in-house development team, those guardrails are a blessing.
The hidden cost: maintenance of vibe-coded sites
The hardest part of vibe coding usually isn’t the first week; it’s month 6, 12, or 24.
Common issues:
The original person who vibe-coded the site is gone
Nobody fully understands the codebase
Upgrading dependencies or fixing bugs becomes painful
New features take longer because the structure is unclear
This is exactly why many experts warn that “vibe-coding your way to a production codebase is risky” unless there’s serious engineering oversight. (Wikipedia)
By contrast, if your website is on Squarespace:
You inherit a consistent, well-documented platform
A skilled Squarespace developer can jump in, customize, or rescue a messy build
The content layer is separate from the underlying platform code
For a lot of businesses, predictable maintenance beats adventurous architecture.
So… should you pick vibe coding or Squarespace?
Choose vibe coding if:
You’re building a custom application, not just a website
You’re comfortable with code, debugging, and infrastructure – or you have a dev for that
You want rapid, experimental prototyping and are okay throwing things away
You see the project more as an app than as a marketing site
Choose Squarespace if:
You need a clean, reliable website that looks professional
You want non-technical people to edit content without breaking anything
You care about SEO, blogging, ecommerce and integrations with email, analytics, etc.
You don’t want to think about hosting, scaling, or security patches
The hybrid approach: Squarespace + custom code (and yes, some AI)
The good news: this doesn’t have to be an either/or choice.
A very pragmatic approach looks like this:
Use Squarespace + Fluid Engine as the public website and content hub
Add custom code (CSS/JS, custom blocks, embeds, APIs) for advanced design and functionality
Use AI (including “vibe coding” techniques) behind the scenes to accelerate development of those custom features – but still have an expert developer audit and maintain the final code
You get:
The stability and usability of Squarespace
The flexibility of custom development where it matters most
The speed of AI-assisted coding, without giving up professional standards
For agencies and experienced developers, that’s often the sweet spot: not fully surrendering your business website to vibes, but still benefiting from modern AI tools in a controlled way.
Final thoughts
Vibe coding is not a gimmick – it’s a real shift in how software gets built, and it’s especially powerful for prototypes and internal tools. But for a client-facing business website that needs to be online, editable, and secure for years, a platform like Squarespace with its drag-and-drop Fluid Engine is usually the smarter baseline.
Then, when you need to go beyond what the editor can do, that’s where working with a Squarespace developer who also understands custom code and modern AI tooling becomes your competitive advantage – instead of a hidden risk.