Salesforce AppExchange Apps: Vibe or Buy

The build vs buy question in the modern AI era.

	Vibe	Buy
Speed to first version Vibe coding gets a prototype fast. But v1 is ~10% of total lifecycle effort. Strategic	Fast	Moderate
Speed to production Hardening a vibe-coded prototype takes 2–4x the original build time. Operations	Slow	Fast
Total cost of ownership Maintenance is 60–80% of lifetime cost. By year 2, unmanaged AI code hits 4x traditional maintenance costs. Cost	High	Predictable
Per-seat pricing No license fees, but token costs, maintenance hours, and opportunity cost can exceed per-seat pricing. Cost	None*	Per-seat
Tax treatment AppExchange subscriptions are clean OPEX. Vibe-coded solutions split across labor, tokens, and infra — harder to categorize. Cost	Murky	Clean OPEX
Security posture AI-generated code contains 2.74x more vulnerabilities. 45% of samples introduce OWASP Top 10 issues. Risk	Unvetted	Reviewed
AppExchange security review Managed packages pass Salesforce's rigorous technical review. Custom code gets no external vetting. Salesforce	None	Passed
Supply chain risk Slopsquatting, LLM poisoning, and compromised AI tool configs are active attack vectors. Risk	High	Low
LLM provider dependency API pricing changes, model deprecations, and provider outages create ongoing instability. Risk	Exposed	Insulated
Salesforce governor limits AI tools don't understand multitenant constraints. SOQL-in-loops and bulk trigger failures are common. Salesforce	Unaware	Optimized
Seasonal release compatibility Salesforce ships 3 releases/year with breaking changes. Who's testing and fixing your code each cycle? Salesforce	Your problem	Vendor handles
Bugfix speed Depends on internal capacity vs. vendor responsiveness. SLAs provide guarantees vibe coding can't. Operations	If you can	SLA-bound
Uptime and SLA No SLA on internal code. Vendors contractually guarantee uptime and response times. Operations	No SLA	Guaranteed
Ongoing support Vibe-coded tools have no support channel. Vendor support scales with your subscription. Operations	DIY	Included
Employee churn resistance If the person who vibe-coded it leaves, institutional knowledge walks out the door. Strategic	Fragile	Resilient
Subject matter expertise Vendors encode years of domain knowledge. AI tools replicate generic patterns. Strategic	Generic	Deep
Stress-tested at scale Vendor solutions run across hundreds of diverse orgs. Your vibe-coded tool has a sample size of one. Strategic	Untested	Proven
Customization and control Is full control over your own code an asset or liability? Strategic	Full*	Configurable
Maintenance burden You own every bug, every upgrade, every compatibility issue. Forever. Operations	All yours	Vendor's
Opportunity cost Every hour maintaining vibe-coded tools is an hour not spent on your core business. Cost	High	Low
Technical debt trajectory GitClear found 8x increase in duplicated code. Forrester predicts 75% of orgs face moderate-to-severe AI debt by 2026. Risk	Compounding	Managed
Managed package benefits Push upgrades, namespace isolation, code obfuscation, IP protection. Salesforce	None	Built-in

Vibe advantages

Depends

Buy advantages