Comparison

How Empadev Builds on Vibe Coding

Vibe coding brought the speed. Empadev brings the soul. Understanding the difference.

By Sarah Oates Dec 3, 2025 6 min read

Andrej Karpathy gave us the perfect term when he coined "vibe coding" in 2024. It captured something essential about how we were starting to work with AI: conversational, exploratory, vibes-based. You described what you wanted, the AI gave you code, you refined the vibe until it felt right.

It was liberating. No more fighting with syntax. No more StackOverflow archaeology. Just you and an AI having a conversation about what you're trying to build.

But here's what we didn't talk about enough: whose vibe were we coding to?

The Vibe Coding Revolution

Let's appreciate what vibe coding actually accomplished:

  • It democratized technical implementation.
  • It made experimentation cheap.
  • It changed the bottleneck from typing speed to articulation clarity.

This was genuinely transformative. But it had a blindspot.

The Missing Perspective

Vibe coding optimizes for one thing: translating your mental model into working code as quickly as possible. Notice what's missing? Any validation that your mental model aligns with what users actually want.

You're vibing with an AI about your vision. But it has no independent perspective. It's like having an extremely competent assistant who will execute any instruction perfectly but never asks "Wait, are you sure users want this?"

Where Empadev Picks Up

Empathetic development doesn't replace vibe coding. It adds a crucial ingredient: simulated user perspective during development, not just after.

Vibe Coding Workflow:

  1. You describe what you want to build
  2. AI generates code matching your description
  3. You refine based on your aesthetic/technical preferences
  4. You ship it
  5. Users tell you what they actually wanted (often too late)

Empathetic Development Workflow:

  1. You describe what you want to build AND who you're building for
  2. Developer agents generate initial implementation
  3. Customer persona agents evaluate the implementation
  4. UX agents refine based on persona feedback
  5. Cycle continues until personas rate it highly

The first four steps happen before any real user sees your work. You're getting user-informed feedback at the speed of vibe coding.

It's Not Vibe Coding vs. Empadev

This is important: empathetic development includes vibe coding. The developer agents in an empadev system are essentially vibe coding with you. But they're doing it in conversation with other agents that represent user perspectives.

Both are vibes-based. One vibe is yours. The other is your target users'.

A Concrete Example

Let me show you the difference with something we actually built: a color picker for a fashion app.

Vibe Coding Approach

You: "Build a color picker component for a fashion app. Make it modern and clean."

AI: [Generates a sleek color picker with RGB sliders and hex input]

You: "Nice, but make it more visual. Add color swatches."

Result: Technically sound, aesthetically pleasing. But unusable for the target audience.

Empadev Approach

You: "Build a color picker for a fashion app targeting women aged 20-30 who care about style."

Developer Agent: [Generates color picker with RGB sliders]

Customer Persona (Gen Z Fashion-Forward): "Wait, I don't think in RGB values. I think in seasons—am I a winter or a summer? And I want to see these colors on actual outfits, not just swatches."

UX Agent: [Redesigns around seasonal color theory]

Result: A tool that matches the user's mental model.

The Speed Question

"Doesn't adding personas slow everything down?"

Surprisingly, no. Yes, there are more iteration cycles. But those cycles happen at AI speed. What you're replacing is the much slower process of shipping, waiting for feedback, and rebuilding.

You're trading fast development followed by slow iteration for slightly slower development that needs less iteration.

Vibe Coding Grew Up

Vibe coding was AI development's adolescence. Full of energy, optimistic, moving fast. Empathetic development is AI development growing up. Still fast. Still energetic. But now asking "Wait, should we build this?" before asking "Can we build this?"

Vibe coding brought the speed. Empadev brings the direction. Together, they're how we build software that moves fast and meets user needs.