I tested all the major AI coding tools. Orchids.app, Cursor, Windsurf, and more. Here's a real look at what actually works in practice and what's just marketing...
Executive Summary
Key findings:
- Orchids won the benchmarks (TrueSkill 30.12), but fails in production because of data loss and problematic TOS
- ROI in EUR: Lovable saves 75% of time (approx. 18.4k EUR a year for a dev team), Cursor 25-35% (approx. 9.2k EUR), Orchids = negative ROI
- Business recommendation: Startups → Lovable, Enterprise → Cursor/Kiro, Orchids → experiments only
Competitive advantage: Teams with an AI workflow have a 6-12 month lead over the competition.
🚀 Clients don't ask which AI tool is "the best". They ask: "Which tool will save us the most time and money right now?" Instead of theorising, I took the same project and built it in 5 different AI environments. The result? One tool has huge potential, but fundamental problems.
Why I tested it
87% of executives expect revenue growth thanks to AI within 3 years. AI-first startups grow 3× faster than traditional ones. But few people test the tools in real conditions.
I took a specific task: a landing page for an AI consulting firm. The same brief, measurable results. I tested speed, quality, reliability and business impact.
Orchids.app: a story of a lost opportunity
Before: I needed to quickly create a professional landing page. The classic process: Figma (1 day) → React development (2-3 days) → testing (1 day) = 4-5 days of work.
Problem: Time = money. On a developer's annual salary of 20.000 EUR that means approx. 1.000 EUR of costs for a single page.
Solution (attempt): Orchids.app promised a "describe-and-deploy" approach. In 8 minutes I had a website that looked like it cost 10.000 EUR from a design agency.
After: The next day the project was gone. No warning, no backup. Reddit full of similar complaints: "4 hours of work, everything gone in the morning."
ROI: Potentially +2000% time saving, in reality -100% (loss of all the work).
What I like about Orchids:
Still, I have to say that Orchids fascinates me more than any other tool I've tested. That moment when in 8 minutes you see in front of you a website that looks like the work of a senior designer with a budget of a quarter of a million is simply magical. The interface is so intuitive that you feel at home in it within a few clicks. And that "describe-and-deploy" approach? That's the future. When it works, it's the closest thing to telepathy between a person and a computer that I've experienced. That's why the reliability problems annoy me so much: I see in Orchids the potential to change the whole way we think about development.
Competitor comparison: Business Impact
Lovable.dev: when speed = competitive advantage
Before: A startup needed an MVP within a month. Classic development: wireframes → design → frontend → backend → testing = 4-6 weeks.
Solution: Lovable.dev created a working demo from a prompt in 1 day. Stakeholders saw the UI immediately.
After: MVP done in a week instead of a month. Faster go-to-market = earlier on the market = higher chance of success.
ROI: 75% time saving = approx. 18.400 EUR a year for a team of 3 developers.
Cursor: the Klarna case study
Klarna reports savings of 10 million dollars a year = approx. 9.2 million EUR. On the Czech market that means:
- A mid-sized company (10 devs): saving approx. 92,000 EUR a year • A startup (3 devs): saving approx. 27.6k EUR a year
- A freelancer: saving approx. 9.200 EUR a year
In practice Cursor saves me 25-35% of my time. On projects of 300+ LOC the difference is striking.
My workflow (and why I don't use Orchids)
Lovable (1 day) → Cursor (7 days) → Replit (onboarding). This process works reliably for me.
Why not Orchids? Despite the benchmark win, the risk of data loss is unacceptable. Until they solve reliability and the TOS, it remains only a toy.
Numbers from the Czech market
- 39% of Czech companies use AI in 2025 (a threefold increase) • 70% of Czech companies still haven't adopted AI
- The average Czech IT project takes 2× longer than the global standard
Whoever adopts AI tools today will have a lead in a year that the competition won't catch up with.
My prediction
Orchids: Has the potential to be the best, but has to solve reliability. Benchmarks show the direction, reality is different.
Lovable: Will dominate the startup segment. SOC 2/ISO certification + clear code ownership.
Cursor: The standard for professional teams. Privacy mode + proven ROI.
Kiro: Enterprise king in 1-2 years. AWS security + a spec-driven approach.
Concrete steps for your team
For startups: Start with Lovable.dev tomorrow. ROI visible within a week.
For dev teams: Cursor has the best productivity/price ratio.
For enterprise: Wait for Kiro or use Cursor with an enterprise plan.
For experiments: Orchids is fun, but not for business.
Side project with vibe coding:
That's exactly why we're building a side project where we'll show the ideal AI workflow in action. The whole process from prompt to deployment, live, without PR waffle. Whoever sees it first will have a lead over 90% of the market. Follow me for early access.
The article was first published on LinkedIn. Original article on LinkedIn
