The West is going all in on vibe coding. Replit, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Bolt – all are building developer-first tools where AI writes and edits code in real time. Some companies now claim up to 90% of their code is AI-generated.
India is taking a different route.
Startups here aren’t reimagining how programmers code. Instead, they’re betting on low-code and no-code platforms that let business users build apps without touching an IDE (Integrated Development Environment).
Bengaluru’s TableSprint is one example. It calls itself an “AI-driven” platform where anyone can create enterprise apps without writing a line of code. “If you can write in English, you can code,” says co-founder Nagasanthosh Josyula.
That pitch works for banks, manufacturers and IT departments. But it isn’t Replit or Cursor. It sits closer to Zoho or Freshdesk — business workflow tools, not developer-first platforms.
Indian IT firms are experimenting with vibe coding too, but usually inside client projects, not as open tools for developers worldwide. And when they do, it is through partnerships with Western tools, since there’s no major one built in India.
That gap defines the India vs West split.
Low Vibes, No Vibes
The difference comes down to how the ecosystem is structured. Less than 5% of startup funding in India goes into deep-tech. Series A and B rounds for engineering-heavy companies are rare. Investors prefer SaaS or consumer plays with quicker exits which might require lesser investment.
“India’s AI startups have focused on revenue-tight, enterprise problems (BFSI, public sector, manufacturing) over global devtools that need massive distribution, GPU capital, and deep IDE/compiler work,” Praveer Kochhar, co-founder and CPO of Kogo AI, a Bengaluru-based AI company, told AIM.
The funding gap is obvious. Replit has raised $272 million. Cursor has raised over a billion. The biggest Indian AI startup funding so far is $50 million for Krutrim. A foundational model is still far from reality, forget a vibe coding tool.
Vivek Ganesh, regional VP of India at OutSystems, links it to research culture. “AI-native coding tools have emerged quickly in the US because they sit at the intersection of deep research ecosystems and early-stage venture capital for developer-focused startups,” he said.
“India, by contrast, has been stronger in services-led IT and enterprise software, with innovation geared toward integration and business process modernisation,” said Ganesh, adding that building AI coding platforms requires specialised research talent and compute resources, areas where Indian startups are still scaling.
Abhinav Girdhar, founder & CEO, Appy Pie, an AI-enabled no-code platform from India, said that the absence of locally built equivalents to AI-native coding tools can be attributed to historical and structural factors. “Building platforms like Cursor or Replit requires heavy R&D, patience for long adoption cycles, and integration with advanced research ecosystems,” Girdhar said.
Government policy hasn’t helped either. The IndiaAI Mission promised in April to build a foundational model in six months, but GPUs have only just started reaching select startups. The focus is more on LLMs, video, and healthcare, not coding tools.
Talent isn’t the problem. India has one of the world’s largest developer bases, with more than 20 million GitHub users. But most of that talent goes into outsourcing or enterprise IT. Startups, in turn, chase workflow automation and process optimisation. Few take on the risk of rethinking how code itself gets written.
“With India’s AI talent pool expanding and new investments in generative AI infra, we are likely to see indigenous coding assistants emerge in the coming years,” Utsaha Khare, India business operations head of Supervity AI told AIM.
Infrastructure is another drag. GPUs are expensive, and compute is scarce. Many Indian startups move abroad to scale. “As infra, capital, and open models mature locally, you’ll see more India-first code tools emerge,” Kochhar said.
Kogo itself isn’t trying to build another Replit. It’s focusing on governance layers for enterprises. “The product should be multilingual, private-first, deployable in your own VPC, priced in INR, and open via SDKs with local model options,” Kochhar said.
The conditions are clearly better in Silicon Valley, giving global players a head start. But, Girdhar believes that this gap is not permanent. “This is an opportunity for new entrants to invest in AI-native developer tools that address both local and global needs,” he said.
“India has already shown it can build SaaS platforms for the world. With the right research investment and long-term bets, we can do the same in vibe coding.”
The Fear of Failure
Money and GPUs aren’t the only hurdles. Credibility matters too. Builder.ai, an Indian-origin company that once claimed “AI app building,” collapsed after it was revealed to be relying on hundreds of human engineers. That has made investors cautious.
Josyula of TableSprint rejected the idea that India is lagging. “We are already competing with vibe coding platforms globally. The future in question is NOW,” he said. “Yes, we have been relatively late entrants into the market but in terms of features and capabilities, Indian companies are catching up fast.”
He argued vibe coding is useful for prototyping but struggles to scale beyond MVPs. TableSprint, he said, offers the “path of least resistance” by bundling backend, frontend, deployment and security into a single stack with no external integrations.
That’s aimed at enterprises, not indie developers. The company is also running workshops with BFSI firms and universities to push vibe coding as a skill.
“Vibe coding platforms have the potential to generate many entrepreneurs, which is a much needed trend for our innovation to grow and sustain,” Josyula said.
Khare of Supervity AI points out why India has no Cursor or Replit yet.
“Most Indian startups have traditionally focused on solving large-scale business problems like fintech, edtech, or healthtech, where demand and adoption are clearer,” he said. “Deep-tech products such as AI coding assistants need heavy R&D, long gestation periods, and access to advanced AI infrastructure, which many companies here are still scaling towards.”
He added that global tools like Cursor and Replit grew out of ecosystems with strong developer-focused research and funding cultures. Khare sees a distinction between low-code/no-code and true vibe coding.
“Low-code/no-code AI platforms have lowered the entry barrier for building apps, and Indian startups are strong here. But AI coding tools won’t just replace coding — they’ll augment it, bringing speed, context-awareness, and collaboration,” he said.
Affordability, multilingual support, and local integrations, he added, are key for the Indian audience.
Josyula admits the bigger hurdle is adoption. Convincing enterprises to pay for vibe coding platforms is harder than selling traditional workflow tools.
India has built global developer tools before — Postman, BrowserStack, Hasura — but none is a Replit or Copilot competitor. “India has a distinct advantage in terms of a large number of domestic users who can drive such growth,” Khare said.
For now, though, the West is building for developers. India is building for businesses.
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