The rise of 'vibe coding'—where developers describe what they want and AI generates the code—has fundamentally altered the economics of software development. Traditionally, teams defaulted to using established open-source frameworks because writing custom code was expensive and error-prone. But now that AI can generate boilerplate and even complex logic quickly, the cost of building in-house has dropped dramatically.
This shift forces a re-evaluation of the build-vs-buy decision. When should you still adopt a framework, and when does it make sense to write your own? The answer depends on several factors: the maturity and stability of the framework, the strategic importance of the feature, the long-term maintenance burden, and the team's ability to support custom code.
For commodity features that are not core to your business, frameworks remain the safer choice. But for differentiating capabilities, AI-assisted custom code can offer more flexibility and control without the overhead of adapting to a framework's constraints. The key is to make this decision deliberately, considering both immediate development speed and long-term total cost of ownership.