At Least 16 Million People Are Building Software Without Knowing How to Code

This report defines and sizes the global population of 'builders': people who create software without knowing how to code, using tools and AI assistance that have shifted creation from writing code to describing it. SlashData distinguishes builders from developers and separates builders into three types: personal (creating tools for themselves or a small circle), internal (building internal tools for their organisations) and external (creating products for customers). It estimates there are 16M-22M active builders today, derived by assigning each tool a share of active and builder users, summing an estimated 31.2M-44.9M active builders across all tools, then applying a 50% discount for multi-tool usage. The report sets out the per-tool estimates behind this figure, covering platforms including Wix Harmony, Replit, Lovable, Claude Code, Base44, OpenAI Codex, Cursor and others. It also considers how fast the builder population is growing in the less than three years since these tools emerged, and the implications for organisations and developers.