TL;DR
I built six fully working apps: PootleWriter, PootlePhotos, PootlePlayground, PootleSites, PootleBooks, and PootleNoodle – each in less than a day. A few years ago, they would have required a full dev team, months of work, and up to £120,000.
Thanks to AI-assisted “vibe coding,” browser APIs, and WordPress Playground, what once felt like enterprise software projects are now weekend experiments that are fast, simple, and fun.
The Week of Six Apps
Over the past few months, I built six fully working apps, each in less than a day.
No teams. No Jira boards. No late-night Slack messages about API keys.
Just me, an idea, and a blank screen.
A few years ago, building these same tools would have taken a small dev team, several months, and tens of thousands of pounds.
Let’s break it down.
PootleWriter
A minimalist writing app that publishes directly to WordPress.
What it does:
Offline writing, Markdown support, one-click publish to WordPress via the REST API.
Then (2020):
- Developer time: 4–6 weeks (front-end, REST integration, testing)
- Cost: £10,000–£15,000
- Team: JS dev, designer, tester
Now:
Built solo in under a day using modern browser APIs, local storage, and vibe coding tools.
Cost: £0
PootlePhotos
A one-click mobile photo uploader that posts directly to your site.
Then:
Building a no-login, privacy-safe uploader tied into WordPress required image compression, REST authentication, and UI.
- Developer time: 3–4 weeks
- Cost: £7,000–£10,000
Now:
8 hours of work. Browser drag-and-drop, client-side compression, instant REST push.
It just works.
PootlePlayground
A visual builder for WordPress Playground blueprints.
Then:
Custom UI, JSON schema handling, and integration with a sandboxed WordPress environment would have needed three developers for 2–3 months.
- Cost: £25,000–£40,000
Now:
Built in a day. The Playground APIs handle most of the complexity.
The magic is that the browser is now the dev environment.
PootleSites
Create and manage multiple local WordPress sites directly in your browser.
Then:
Running multiple WordPress instances locally, in-browser, with persistence sounded impossible.
- Developer R&D time: 3 months
- Cost: £30,000+
Now:
WordPress Playground makes it real. Add a little JS and persistence logic and you’ve got a browser-based multisite sandbox.
Time: 1 day
PootleBooks
A simple book-writing app that publishes to the web.
Then:
A web-based publishing system with chapters, instant preview, and hosting would have taken at least 6–8 weeks.
- Cost: £10,000–£20,000
Now:
Built in a single day using lightweight storage and front-end frameworks.
Fast, elegant, and entirely local.
PootleNoodle
Record a guitar riff and publish it to WordPress in seconds.
Then:
Audio capture, file handling, and Gutenberg block creation required around six weeks of work.
- Cost: £10,000–£15,000
- You’d need a dev comfortable with media APIs and WP REST.
Now:
Modern media APIs, REST, and one afternoon of fun. Done.
The Bigger Picture
A few years ago, these six tools would have required:
- 6–8 months of work
- £80,000–£120,000 in dev costs
- A small team of engineers and designers
Today, they were vibe coded: one person, one week, one laptop.
This isn’t about being a developer. It’s about how the creative process has changed.
APIs, playgrounds, and AI-assisted coding have shifted software creation from “enterprise project” to “afternoon experiment.”
The tools I built are simple, but that’s the point.
They’re human, fast, and fun.
They remind us that making things for the web doesn’t have to be complicated anymore.
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