Why devkoi builds websites in a chat
A chat window is an odd place to build a website. Here is the reasoning behind it, what the format is genuinely good at, and the three things it is worse at.
Most website builders begin by handing you a blank canvas and a toolbar. It looks generous. In practice it is the hardest possible place to start, because before you can move anything you have to decide what everything is going to be.
devkoi starts somewhere else. You send a message describing what you need, the way you would describe it to a person. Something like “a one-page site for my bike repair shop in Leeds, with opening hours and a phone number” is enough to begin.
What happens after the first message
A site gets built from that description and you get a link to look at it. The link is unlisted and stops working after 24 hours, and we ask search engines to leave it alone — it is there for you to react to, not for anyone to find.
Then you ask for changes. “Make the phone number bigger.” “The hours are wrong on Saturdays.” “I don’t like the red.” Each one is a message, and each one produces a new version you can look at.
Nothing is overwritten. Every version of your site is kept, so if a change makes things worse you can go back to the one before it.
What a conversation is actually good at
Three things, mostly.
Starting. Reacting to something real is far easier than describing something imaginary. A first draft you dislike is more useful than an empty page, because now you know what to say.
Small changes. Most website edits are one sentence long. Fixing a phone number should not require opening an editor, finding the right panel and remembering how you did it last time.
Not having to learn anything. There is no interface to get used to. If you can describe the change, you can make it — from a phone, on a bus, in the ninety seconds you have between customers.
What it is worse at
It would be dishonest to stop there, so:
Precise visual control. If you know exactly where you want a thing, to the pixel, describing that in words is slower than dragging it. A conversation is good at “this feels cramped” and bad at “move it eleven pixels left”.
Knowing things about your business. It only knows what you tell it. It will not guess your prices, invent your opening hours, or write your refund policy — and you would not want it to. Gaps stay gaps until you fill them.
Photographs. Your storefront, your team, your actual work: nobody can generate those, and a stock photo of a different bike shop does not build much trust. Send your own pictures and they go straight in.
Publishing is a separate decision
Building is free, but it does not put the site on the internet. The free plan gives you a preview link, 5 pages and 30 changes a month — enough to find out whether this works for you at all.
Putting it on the internet, on your own domain, starts at $19 a month. That split is deliberate: publishing is the part that costs us money, so it is the part we charge for, rather than starting a clock and taking your site away when it runs out.
Where to start
Send a sentence. If you would rather not use a chat app, devkoi also connects to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and a few others over MCP, and there is a portal for your sites, domains and billing.
The first message does not have to be good. It just has to be a start.