Running 5 Vibe-Coded Apps? Here's How to Keep Them All Healthy

The Vibe Coder's Blessing and Curse

AI made you productive. Too productive.

What used to take months now takes weekends. You have ideas. You build them. Each one gets deployed somewhere:

• App 1: Supabase + Vercel, custom domain
• App 2: Supabase + Netlify, subdomain
• App 3: Firebase + Vercel, forgot to set up custom domain
• App 4: Supabase + Railway, that experiment from last month
• App 5: The one you built yesterday, haven't even deployed yet

Each app has its own:

• Database dashboard to check
• Hosting platform to monitor
• Domain registrar (maybe different ones)
• Git repository
• Dependencies to update

And you're supposed to keep track of all of this... how?

The Multiplication Problem

Every app you add doesn't just add one more thing to check. It multiplies your operational overhead.

With 1 App

• Check Supabase: 2 min
• Check Vercel: 1 min
• Check domain: 1 min
• Run npm audit: 2 min
• Total: ~6 min/week

With 5 Apps

• Check 5 Supabases: 10 min
• Check 5 hosting platforms: 5 min
• Check 5 domains: 5 min
• Run npm audit on 5 repos: 10 min
• Total: ~30 min/week

And that's assuming nothing is wrong. When something IS wrong? Now you're debugging across multiple projects, trying to remember which one uses which version of which package.

What Actually Goes Wrong

The "Which One Was It?" Problem

You get a Slack message: "The app is down."

Which app? You have five. You check Vercel #1. Fine. Check Vercel #2. Fine. Check... oh wait, that one's on Netlify. Where's the Netlify dashboard? Which email did you use for that account?

The SSL Expiry Cascade

You have 5 custom domains. Each with its own SSL certificate. One expires without you noticing. Now your users see "This connection is not private."

But wait—you have Cloudflare on some, direct SSL on others, one's using Let's Encrypt auto-renewal (which silently failed because you changed DNS)...

The Supabase Pause Lottery

With 5 Supabase projects on free tier:

• Maximum 2 can be "active" at once
• The others pause after 7 days
• You forget which ones you set up keep-alive scripts for
• One morning, 3 of your apps are down

The Dependency Roulette

A CVE drops affecting a package you use. Is it in App 1? App 3? All of them? You haven't run npm audit in weeks because... which repo do you even start with?

The Honest Assessment

At some point, you need to admit: You have more apps than you can properly maintain.

Options:

• Kill some apps - The brutally honest answer. Not every project deserves to live.

• Upgrade your infrastructure - Pay for monitoring, pay for Pro tiers, automate everything.

• Consolidate monitoring - At minimum, see all your apps in one place.

• Hire someone - If you're making money, pay for ops help.

Most vibe coders doing this solo need a combination of 1 and 3. Kill the apps that aren't going anywhere. Properly monitor the ones that matter.

The Minimum Viable Multi-App Setup

If you insist on running 5+ apps, here's the minimum to not lose your mind:

For Each App, Know:

• Where it's hosted - Write it down. Seriously.
• What database it uses - Including credentials location
• When the domain expires - Calendar reminder 30 days out
• Last time you updated dependencies - More than 3 months = danger zone

Centralize What You Can

• One GitHub org for all your projects
• One password manager with all credentials
• One monitoring dashboard that shows all apps
• One document listing everything (we'll get to this)

Automate The Boring Stuff

• SSL monitoring (get alerts before expiry)
• Dependency scanning (know when CVEs affect you)
• Uptime checks (know when things are down before users tell you)
• Database activity (prevent Supabase pausing)

The "Which Apps Do I Actually Need" Exercise

Here's a brutal but useful exercise:

For each of your 5 apps, answer:

• When did someone last use it? (Not you—a real user)
• Does it make money or have a path to making money?
• If it died tomorrow, would anyone notice?
• Are you excited to work on it?

If the answers are "months ago," "no," "no," and "no": Kill it. Archive the repo. Free up the Supabase project slot. Stop paying for the domain.

It's okay to let experiments die. That's what experiments are for.

The Master Project Tracker

If you're running multiple apps, create a simple doc:

| App | Hosting | Database | Domain | SSL Expires | Last Updated | Status |

|-----|---------|----------|--------|-------------|--------------|--------|

| App1 | Vercel | Supabase (free) | app1.com | 2026-04-15 | 2026-01-05 | Active |

| App2 | Netlify | Supabase (pro) | app2.com | 2026-08-01 | 2025-12-20 | Active |

| App3 | Vercel | Firebase | — | — | 2025-11-01 | Stale |

Update this monthly. It takes 10 minutes and saves hours of confusion when something breaks.

The Real Solution: Fewer Apps, Better Maintained

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but:

Having fewer, healthier apps beats having many neglected ones.

The vibe coding superpower is building fast. The vibe coding trap is building too much. Every deployed app is a liability until proven otherwise.

Pick your winners. Maintain them properly. Archive the rest.

Scaling Past 5 Apps (If You Must)

If you genuinely have 5+ apps that matter:

• You need real monitoring. Not checking dashboards manually.
• You need automated alerts. Know about problems before users do.
• You need dependency automation. Can't run npm audit on 10 repos manually.
• You probably need to spend money. Free tiers don't scale to fleets.

At this point, you're not a vibe coder with side projects. You're running infrastructure. Act accordingly.

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SlyDuck gives you one dashboard for all your vibe-coded apps. Stop juggling—first project is always free.