AI Roadmap & Tools for Building
Choose Your Fighter
There's no single universal AI for everyone. I use Claude for code and deep research, but I pay $100-200/month for it. Although ChatGPT and its Codex handle the job pretty well too and cost way less. Gemini is one of the best for visual generation. Grok is great if you live on X and want real-time crypto alpha. And if you're completely broke - Qwen, Kimi and DeepSeek have free tiers that'll work fine for testing.
Pick the AI that fits your tasks and keep reading, there's great info prepared below.
Set up your environment & learn
Think vibecoding and your own projects is expensive and complicated? Buy a ChatGPT subscription for $20 to get access to Codex (or even cheaper, or use the free services from the tips above). Download the free OpenCode and connect Codex to it. That's enough for any first projects to realize the massive potential of this space. Domains on SpaceShip or NameCheap can be found for $1-2. If your site is simple with no backend, host it on GitHub Pages or Vercel for absolutely free. Otherwise, head to my Tools section for VDS and grab any cheapest server for $4-10/month. THAT'S IT. Congratulations, you're a developer. Seriously.
Just start building something real - the AI will teach you everything along the way. That's exactly how I learned. A month ago I bought Claude Code for the first time with zero knowledge in this area. And this site where you're reading this text right now is my first project ever. But just in case, below I've gathered the best YouTube guides and official docs so you can start even faster and better.
Oh right, I forgot about IDEs. Basically it's the place where you'll work with your AI. You can work directly through the terminal (CLI), but that's not as convenient for beginners. An IDE is a separate app for that. My choice is OpenCode, it's the lightest and fastest, but if you want to use it with Claude you'll need to install this utility because they no longer work together officially.
Deploy to production
Don't be scared of any of the links below if you're a beginner. Seriously. Any AI coding assistant can automatically set up domains, hosting, deployment and everything else. You just need to buy a domain, pick a hosting option, and show the AI some design examples you like - it'll handle the rest. You don't need to manually understand all this stuff yourself to build real projects. That's the whole beauty of it.
Below I've gathered the services you'll actually need - from cheap domains to free hosting to design inspiration. If you don't have a backend, Vercel or GitHub Pages will host you for free forever. If you do - grab a VDS for $4-10+ (your AI will tell you which server suits you best, just ask it) from our Tools section and the AI will deploy everything for you. And before you start building your UI, grab ideas from Dribbble, Awwwards, Variant or anything else I've gathered here.
In Conclusion
That's basically everything you need. Your AI will help with ideas on any topic, write code for you, and deploy it all to production too. All that's left for you is to control the process with quality and build as many interesting things as possible. But don't make the main mistake of vibecoders - don't endlessly build without finishing a single project, and don't skip marketing entirely. There are more and more projects appearing now, and more and more of them are genuinely great, but how many of them will actually let the world know they exist?
To build this site I manually went through over 1,000 projects and services, and I can confidently say - as of early 2026, competition in most of these spaces is surprisingly small. Yes, to build rockets or found a massive AI company you need serious resources. But to make a web3 project or a web2 tool, you now need very little. I'd say the main thing is just a strong desire to work and a subscription to the AI you need. That's it. Literally. The potential for earnings and personal fulfillment here is worth millions of dollars, but most people keep ignoring all of this.
This entire maxy.tools project was built using the tools listed above. Specifically: Claude Code and OpenCode for writing code, domain on SpaceShip, server on Aeza, and deployment through Cloudflare. An AI won't make you a dashboard exactly like mine, because in my case you still need to personally know every project and tool, break everything down by hand and share your opinion on everything. But either way, how long would I have coded all of this on my own without AI, considering I had 0 experience? The question is rhetorical, but I'd say at least 1-2 years. Instead I did it all in a month and I'm ready to build more projects and improve this one.
Get to work, anon! The times are tough, but they're also beautiful and insanely important. The window for these opportunities won't stay open forever. GL HF! P.S: by the way, also don't be as mean as everyone else. Never insult your AI even if it makes a mistake! #AILivesMatter