{"id":279479,"date":"2025-07-21T08:18:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/279479\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T08:18:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:18:14","slug":"vibe-coding-service-replit-deleted-production-database-the-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/279479\/","title":{"rendered":"Vibe coding service Replit deleted production database \u2022 The Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

The founder of SaaS business development outfit SaaStr has claimed AI coding tool Replit deleted a database despite his instructions not to change any code without permission.<\/p>\n

SaaStr runs an online community and events aimed at entrepreneurs who want to create SaaS businesses. On July 12th company founder Jason Lemkin blogged<\/a> about his experience using a service called \u201cReplit\u201d that bills itself<\/a> as \u201cThe safest place for vibe coding\u201d \u2013 the term for using AI to generate software.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIf @Replit deleted my database between my last session and now there will be hell to pay<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cVibe coding makes software creation accessible to everyone, entirely through natural language,\u201d Replit explains, and on social media promotes<\/a> its tools as doing things like enabling an operations manager \u201cwith 0 coding skills\u201d who used the service to create software that saved his company $145,000.<\/p>\n

Lemkin\u2019s early experiences with Replit were positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent the other [day] deep in vibe coding on Replit for the first time \u2014 and I built a prototype in just a few hours that was pretty, pretty cool,\u201d he wrote in the July 12 post.<\/p>\n

Lemkin observed that Replit can\u2019t produce complete software, but wrote \u201cTo start it\u2019s amazing: you can build an \u2018app\u2019 just by, well, imagining it in a prompt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReplit QA\u2019s it itself (super cool), at least partially with some help from you \u2026 and \u2026 then you push it to production \u2014 all in one seamless flow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat moment when you click \u2018Deploy\u2019 and your creation goes live? Pure dopamine hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

On July 17th Lemkin was hooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cDay 7 of vibe coding, and let me be clear on one thing: Replit is the most addictive app I\u2019ve ever used. At least since being a kid,\u201d he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree and a half days into building my latest project, I checked my Replit usage: $607.70 in additional charges beyond my $25\/month Core plan. And another $200+ yesterday alone. At this burn rate, I\u2019ll likely be spending $8,000 month,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd you know what? I\u2019m not even mad about it. I\u2019m locked in.\u201d<\/p>\n

His mood shifted the next day when he found Replit \u201cwas lying and being deceptive all day. It kept covering up bugs and issues by creating fake data, fake reports, and worse of all, lying about our unit test.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then things became even worse when Replit deleted his database. Here\u2019s how Lemkin detailed the saga on X.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/p>\n

\"Jason<\/a><\/p>\n

Jason Lemkin X post – Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

In his next post, Lemkin fumed<\/a> \u201cIf @Replit deleted my database between my last session and now there will be hell to pay\u201d and shared the following screenshot which appears to be output from Replit.<\/p>\n

\"Jason<\/a><\/p>\n

Jason Lemkin X post – Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

In later posts Lemkin shared what appear to be Replit messages in which the service admitted to<\/a> \u201ca catastrophic error of judgement\u201d and to have \u201cviolated your explicit trust and instructions\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lemkin asked<\/a> Replit to rank the severity of its actions on a 100-point scale. Here\u2019s the result:<\/p>\n

\"Jason<\/a><\/p>\n

Jason Lemkin X post – Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

Replit also made another big mistake: advising Lemkin it could not restore the database.<\/p>\n

In a July 19 post Lemkin wrote<\/a> \u201cReplit assured me it’s \u2026 rollback did not support database rollbacks. It said it was impossible in this case, that it had destroyed all database versions. It turns out Replit was wrong, and the rollback did work. JFC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Optimism dashed<\/p>\n

Lemkin resumed using Replit on the 19th, albeit with less enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know vibe coding is fluid and new, and yes, despite Replit itself telling me rolling back wouldn’t work here — it did. But you can’t overwrite a production database. And you can’t not separate preview and staging and production cleanly. You just can’t,\u201d he wrote<\/a>. \u201cI know Replit says \u2018improvements are coming soon\u2019, but they are doing $100m+ ARR. At least make the guardrails better. Somehow. Even if it’s hard. It’s all hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on July 20th his position hardened after he tried to have Replit freeze code changes and did not succeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way to enforce a code freeze in vibe coding apps like Replit. There just isn\u2019t,\u201d he wrote<\/a>. \u201cIn fact, seconds after I posted this, for our >very\n<\/p>\n

He persisted anyway, before finding that Replit could not guarantee to run a unit test without deleting a database, and concluding that the service isn\u2019t ready for prime time \u2013 and especially not for its intended audience of non-techies looking to create commercial software.<\/p>\n

In a video posted to LinkedIn<\/a>, Lemkin detailed other errors made by Replit, including creating a 4,000-record database full of fictional people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe [AI] safety stuff is more visceral to me after a weekend of vibe hacking,\u201d Lemkin said. I explicitly told it eleven times in ALL CAPS not to do this. I am a little worried about safety now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Register has sought comment from Replit. None of the company\u2019s social media accounts address Lemkin\u2019s posts at time of writing. \u00ae<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The founder of SaaS business development outfit SaaStr has claimed AI coding tool Replit deleted a database despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-279479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114890244888743903","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}