“Vibe coding” is not suitable for simple translation. For now, Chinese speakers call this “氛围编程”. Fenway Biancheng氛围 is “atmosphere”/”atmosphere”, and 编程 is coding. This is an awkward expression. That’s because “氛围” usually refers to the atmosphere of a space or environment, and doesn’t have the carefree, DIY connotations of the colloquial American English “ambience.” The word “氛围编程” sounds like nonsense as a phrase like “encode an atmosphere.”
However, we often find that writers simply use English words. Chinese developers, creators, and entrepreneurs have used AI tools to create many interesting coding projects over the past year. In doing so, it leverages popular tools from Silicon Valley giants like Cursor and Claude Code, as well as domestic models as Chinese AI companies increase competition in the coding agent market.
The culture of tinkering knows no borders, and companies are reaping the benefits. This is a collection of Chinese media reports on how vibe coding is changing the technology landscape in China, including:
as much as possible 30% Some of Microsoft’s code is written by AI. Written by several engineers at OpenAI and Anthropic almost all code Use a coding agent. Chinese technology companies are also encouraging engineers to adopt their AI-powered coding products.
In early 2025, ByteDance released TRAE, their answer to Cursors. TRAE is an integrated development environment (IDE) that is both traditional and AI-native. mode. Build mode is very similar to a traditional IDE, but with an AI assistant that generates code based on prompts and code you manually write. However, the “Chat” mode is a chatbot-like interface that focuses on natural language prompts. In other words, it was made for vibe coding. A year later, ByteDance introduced the 2.0 series of Doubao models, providing direct access to Doubao-Seed-2.0-Code through TRAE. TikTok’s most famous company also appears to be building an ecosystem for AI programming.
Tencent similarly built CodeBuddy, an IDE that integrates its own Yuanbao AI model. (These IDEs allow users to connect to other AI models via API keys, so developers are not locked into a corporate ecosystem when choosing an IDE.) InfoQ, a technology content platform, interviewed a product manager at CodeBuddy. here. company reported It is reported that by 2025, more than 90% of engineers will be using CodeBuddy to help them code, and half of new code at Tencent will be written with the help of AI. Not to be outdone, Alibaba also released its coding assistant platform Qoder in August 2025.
As discussed in our article, Lunar New Year SummaryCompetition for domestically produced coding agents is intensifying in China. Frontier Labs like Zhipu, MiniMax, and Kimi are all adjusting their new models and product strategies from chatbot interfaces to AI-assisted coding. But China doesn’t seem to have an answer to the Claude code yet. Popular coding models like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google should be geo-blocked in China. Cursor itself is available, but users in China are only offered the non-geoblocked model. Word on the street is that Chinese developers still jump through complicated hurdles to access key Western tools, even though coding tools from domestic labs are much easier to access.
36Kr reported Chinese college student earns RMB 90,000 (approximately $13,027) a month by renting out unlimited AI coding tool accounts. He was able to gain discounted access to Antigravity, Augment, and Claude Code through Google’s student promotion and is currently running a large account rental effort.
looks like Anthropic is trending…Yesterday, in an announcement of efforts to extract models from Deepseek, Minimax, and Moonshot, they flagged educational accounts as particularly vulnerable to Chinese abuse.
In September 2025, product and technology leaders of AI coding tools from Baidu, Meituan, Tencent, and Alibaba gathered at a roundtable during a conference in Beijing. It was a typical tech industry event until they invited a 12-year-old boy on stage.
Guo Guo continued mercilessly. roast All coding tools:
Guoguo: Hello everyone. My nickname is Guoguo and I’m 12 years old. I’ve been learning AI for a while and recently started doing small things through vibecoding. I’ve used all four of the applications mentioned here, and while they’re all fun, I’ve also run into issues.
For example, when I was using MeDo [秒哒, Baidu’s conversational coding platform]I wanted to change the color of the page from pink to purple. I said it three times in a row and it still didn’t change. I can access the page and edit it manually and it works, but it doesn’t listen to my requests. It was so annoying.
NoCode also had issues. I wanted to build a decision query website and add some character to it. However, only the main character is added, not the supporting characters. I then asked the AI to fill out my decision list, but it only added my name and hometown, no specific details. I also copied that information myself, but it was still being added incorrectly or mixed up. That was even more annoying.
In the case of Qoder, I made a big mistake when using it. I didn’t select a folder so I didn’t know where to open it. Later I realized that I need to select a folder first. For a first-time user like me, it was really unfriendly.
Huangshuo [黄叔, from Alibaba’s Qoder team]: So, which one do you think is the best?
Guoguo: The first one I used was MeDo, and I started using others around the same time. I think everyone is very good. MeDo and NoCode have web versions, but I prefer them. Qoder and CodeBuddy look more professional and more “high-end”. You can show it off in front of your classmates.
In December 2024, an incredibly simple app suddenly became the most downloaded paid iPhone app in China. It’s called the “Little Cat Color Light Box” or “Little Kitten Color Light Box” and it costs only 1 RMB (approximately USD 0.14). Once opened, your phone’s screen will change to one of 11 solid colors, and you can adjust the opacity and brightness. Positioning your phone’s screen at a strategic angle (usually a few inches away from your face at a 45-degree angle) will provide optimal lighting for quick selfie sessions.
The developer of Little Kitten Colored Lightbox is Peanut. Until 2024, I worked in product operations and had never written code. peanut said Chinese tech news outlet 36Kr After quitting his job at Meituan due to a midlife crisis, he spent almost all of his time learning AI, using ChatGPT as a tutor and reading Python textbooks. But by the time Cursor arrived in August 2024, he had made breakthroughs and created more than 20 apps in a matter of months.
The inspiration for Little Kitten Colored Lightbox came when Peanut was helping his girlfriend with a photo shoot. He noticed that she kept searching on social media for color blocks to fill her phone screen to create better lighting. He went home, used Cursor to code an iOS app that did just that in an hour and a half, and shared the tutorial on social media. This exploded among female users, who gave him feedback and ideas for features in the new version.
Peanuts currently teaches Vibe Coding on many platforms including: YouTube. he said Chinese media reported that although some professional developers dismissed his project as frivolous (or were clearly jealous that the iOS App Store approved his app so quickly), he believes he succeeded in meeting real user demand.
Finally, these are just a few of the projects that I found interesting while scrolling through vibecoding related topics on Chinese social media.
crash decoder: Upload a screenshot of your crush’s WeChat or Rednote posts and this website will decipher their personality and tell you how to pursue them romantically.
Ikuhiro (“Birthday Beep”): Track your and your loved ones’ lunar birthdays.
找个local (“Find a place”, WeChat mini app): Based on everyone’s location, it suggests where to meet up with friends in the same city.
BLESSING 语显目ば (“Greetings Master”, WeChat mini-app): Generate elaborate greeting messages based on the occasion, style, and relationship with the target recipient, making them look great in family group chats.
project joey: Find where, when, and how often a keyword appears across a sitcom series friend,In other words Extremely popular in China.