Playcode - AI Website Builder
The world's best AI website builder. 10 years in the making.
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Ruslan Ianberdin

Playcode - The world's best AI website builder. 10 years in the making.

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Playcode - AI Website Builder
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We set out to build the world's best AI website builder. Not another template tool. Not another code generator. A complete AI agent that thinks like a senior designer - asks questions, plans your site structure, builds page by page, generates images, logos, and icons. Paste any website URL - AI redesigns it in 2 minutes, keeping your content. Visual editor. Voice input in any language. Update from your phone. One-click publish with hosting and custom domain. 10 years. 1.1M users. 26M+ projects.

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Ruslan Ianberdin
Maker
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Hi HN,

I've been building Playcode since 2016. Started as a JavaScript playground - think CodePen/JSFiddle but with a real bundler, NPM packages, and live preview. Over time it grew to 1.1M registered users and 26M projects.

In March 2026, we pivoted. Our data showed that AI website builder users converted at 10x the rate of playground users. The paying customers weren't developers - they were entrepreneurs, small business owners, freelancers.

So we rebuilt the entire frontend experience around AI. You describe your business, AI asks clarifying questions, creates a sitemap, then builds pages one by one. It generates images, logos, icons. You can paste an old website URL and it redesigns it with modern code. Visual editor for direct changes. One-click publish with hosting included.

Tech stack: Vue 3, NestJS, PostgreSQL, ClickHouse for analytics, best available AI (LLM) providers (Anthropic, Gemini, OpenAI, Grok) - AI picks the best model per task).

Revenue doubled in the first month after the pivot.

What I learned: sometimes your best product isn't the one you set out to build. It's the one your data points you toward.

Try it: https://playcode.io/ai-website-b...

Happy to answer questions about the tech, the pivot decision, or the business.
swati paliwal

@ianberdin Congrats. Just a quick quest: what's one surprising challenge non-dev users hit when iterating on the AI-generated sites, and how does the visual editor solve it?

Ruslan Ianberdin
Maker

@swati_paliwal A very unusual question. I think first and foremost, they face the fact that this is a completely new, unfamiliar way. And non-dev users are used to website builders where there is a UI, where you select blocks, edit them, and do it manually. They want to do it that way.

And that's where the visual editor helps. Or, secondly, they probably can't explain exactly what they want to change, and they would like to show it. And here again, the visual editor helps, when you can point and say, "Change this."

However, I tried very, very hard to make it so that almost everything could be done simply by chatting. It will understand, ask, suggest, rephrase, and do what is needed, and even what you didn't expect you needed.

Davit Svanidze

Does this website builder more emphasise UI side of things, or what is distinction to similar tools, like lovable, base44 etc.

Ruslan Ianberdin
Maker

@davitausberlin Great question.

Lovable, base44, and similar tools focus on one thing: generating a static front-end site. That's the easy part.

We're building something much bigger. Our goal is to cover the full spectrum of what a small business actually needs - not just a landing page, but a full-stack site with backend, automation, and integrations.

Think of it as an AI business partner, not just a website builder. "Best AI website builder in the world" is honestly an understatement of where we're heading.

What we already do differently today:

  • Paste any URL, get a modern redesign of that site instantly

  • AI generates all images, icons, and graphics - no stock photos needed

  • Professional voice input that actually works (any language, technical terms, near-zero errors)

  • Full mobile experience - build and edit from your phone

  • Own hosting infrastructure on our own hardware, with global CDN

What's coming next: full-stack sites with backend logic, WhatsApp/Telegram integration so you can manage your business from a chat ("How are my sales today? Send a follow-up to that client"), and workflow automation.

We completely rebuilt the product and marketing in January-February and we're shipping at an insane pace. Everything is still ahead.

Sayanta Ghosh

AI getting "done for you" websites up is so cool.

I'm creating a CLI that I need a website for will try Playcode for sure. Does it take into account AEO best practices?

Ruslan Ianberdin
Maker

@sayanta_ghosh Hello, thank you for the comment. AEO - for sure.