Vibe Coding VS AI

_posts/2025-06-01-vibe-coding-vs-agentic.md

@@ -0,0 +1,156 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Vibe Coding vs. Agentic AI: Two Paths to Building with AI"
+date: 2025-06-01
+read_time: 8 min
+categories: [ai-tools-applications]
+permalink: /blog/vibe-coding-vs-agentic
+excerpt: "Understanding two powerful approaches to AI-assisted development and when to use each"
+image: /branding/posts/vibe-coding-vs-agentic.png
+---
+
+<div class="blog-post-header">
+  <div class="blog-post-meta">
+    <span class="post-date">June 1, 2025</span>
+    <span class="post-category">AI-Assisted Development</span>
+  </div>
+  <h1 class="post-title">Vibe Coding vs. Agentic AI: Two Paths to Building with AI</h1>
+  <p class="post-subtitle">Understanding Two Different but Powerful Approaches to Coding with AI</p>
+  <div class="post-author">
+    <img src="/branding/images/katie-author.jpg" alt="Author" class="author-image">
+    <div class="author-info">
+      <span class="author-name">Katie Stoltz</span>
+      <span class="author-title">Software Developer</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="featured-image">
+  <img src="/branding/posts/vibe-coding-vs-agentic.png" alt="Featured image">
+</div>
+
+<div class="post-content">
+  <p>AI-assisted development has already reshaped how we write software but we're just getting started. If you've been following the conversation in dev circles lately, you've probably heard two buzzwords thrown around more and more: <strong>Vibe Coding</strong> and <strong>Agentic AI</strong>.</p>
+
+  <p>They're not just hype. They represent two very different but powerful approaches to coding with AI, and knowing when to use each might be the key to shipping faster and smarter in this new era of software development.</p>
+
+  <p>Let's break them down.</p>
+
+  <h2>What Is Vibe Coding?</h2>
+
+  <p>Coined by Andrej Karpathy (former Tesla AI lead and founding member of OpenAI), vibe coding is exactly what it sounds like: <strong>coding by feel</strong>.</p>
+
+  <p>You give an LLM a rough prompt like:</p>
+  <blockquote>
+    <p>"Write a basic API with a couple endpoints and a simple in-memory cache."</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <p>And out pops working code. You might not know exactly how it works line-by-line but you know the vibe is right.</p>
+
+  <p>It's the spiritual successor to autocomplete. But instead of finishing your function, it builds your whole prototype. Great for:</p>
+  <ul>
+    <li>Weekend hacks</li>
+    <li>Exploratory coding</li>
+    <li>Solo developers building MVPs</li>
+    <li>Teams doing rapid prototyping</li>
+  </ul>
+
+  <p>If you've ever booted up Cursor, Copilot, or Replit and just started "prompting your way" to a working feature, you've done vibe coding.</p>
+
+  <h2>What Is Agentic AI?</h2>
+
+  <p>Agentic AI takes things a step further. Instead of responding to prompts, these AI agents have <strong>autonomy</strong>. You give them a goal, and they break it into subtasks, choose tools, write and revise code, run tests, and even spin up containers—all without your direct intervention.</p>
+
+  <p>Imagine asking an agent:</p>
+  <blockquote>
+    <p>"Build a REST API in Rust, containerize it, deploy to staging, and monitor for 404s."</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <p>And watching it plan, execute, debug, and deploy without hand-holding.</p>
+
+  <p>These systems use chains of reasoning, memory, stateful planning, and often plug into your existing infra. Popular examples include:</p>
+  <ul>
+    <li>DevOps agents for CI/CD tasks</li>
+    <li>Multi-agent systems orchestrating complex app development</li>
+    <li>LLMops pipelines automating data pipelines or API orchestration</li>
+  </ul>
+
+  <h2>How Are They Different?</h2>
+
+  <div class="comparison-table">
+    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;">
+      <thead>
+        <tr>
+          <th style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;"></th>
+          <th style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">Vibe Coding</th>
+          <th style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">Agentic AI</th>
+        </tr>
+      </thead>
+      <tbody>
+        <tr>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px; font-weight: bold;">Level of Autonomy</td>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">Low – requires prompting and human validation</td>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">High – can self-direct, plan, and act</td>
+        </tr>
+        <tr>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px; font-weight: bold;">Speed</td>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">Fast for small things</td>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">Slower setup but scales tasks</td>
+        </tr>
+        <tr>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px; font-weight: bold;">Best For</td>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">Prototypes, individual workflows</td>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">Complex, multi-step systems</td>
+        </tr>
+        <tr>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px; font-weight: bold;">Risk Profile</td>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">Easy to misuse or misunderstand output</td>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">Higher ops complexity, but less manual work</td>
+        </tr>
+        <tr>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px; font-weight: bold;">Mental Model</td>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">"AI as assistant"</td>
+          <td style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 8px;">"AI as collaborator or teammate"</td>
+        </tr>
+      </tbody>
+    </table>
+  </div>
+
+  <h2>How Do You Choose?</h2>
+
+  <p>Most dev teams don't need to pick just one. The smart play is to pilot both, use them where they shine, and layer them into your workflow gradually.</p>
+
+  <h3>Use Vibe Coding when:</h3>
+  <ul>
+    <li>You're in flow mode</li>
+    <li>You want to explore ideas quickly</li>
+    <li>You're working solo or on small features</li>
+  </ul>
+
+  <h3>Use Agentic AI when:</h3>
+  <ul>
+    <li>You want repeatable automation</li>
+    <li>You're building internal tools or infra</li>
+    <li>You need hands-off ops and scale</li>
+  </ul>
+
+  <h2>Where It's Going</h2>
+
+  <p>Right now, vibe coding is dominating the AI dev UX. It's easy, fast, and feels magical. But as teams look to scale and operationalize AI, agentic workflows will become more common.</p>
+
+  <p>The real magic? <strong>Combining both</strong>. Prompt out a prototype with vibe coding, then let your agentic infra test, deploy, and monitor it. Or better yet have your agent do the prompting for you. Wild, but it's already happening.</p>
+
+  <h2>Final Thoughts</h2>
+
+  <p>If the last few years were about learning how to prompt LLMs, the next few will be about how we collaborate with AI agents at scale. Whether you're building solo or shipping with a team, there's a clear takeaway: <strong>start experimenting now</strong>. Both vibe coding and agentic AI are changing what it means to "write software."</p>
+
+  <p>And if you're still writing everything from scratch... you might be doing it the hard way.</p>
+
+  <div class="post-tags">
+    <span class="tag">Vibe Coding</span>
+    <span class="tag">Agentic AI</span>
+    <span class="tag">AI Development</span>
+    <span class="tag">Developer Workflow</span>
+    <span class="tag">Automation</span>
+  </div>
+</div>