Gemini Grades the Website Build Difficulty

After writing about how I built this site, I had a nagging question: was I underselling the difficulty, or overselling it? When you’ve done something yourself, it’s hard to gauge how hard it actually was. I kept describing the build as “beginner-friendly” — but that’s self-assessment from someone who just did it and wants others to try.

So I asked a different AI to evaluate it. Not Claude, which built the site and would have obvious bias. Gemini — Google’s AI — to read the full build writeup and grade the difficulty independently. The question: would an outside perspective confirm “this is beginner-friendly,” or flag steps I’d glossed over as harder than I admitted?

Gemini’s take was that the process is beginner-friendly and designed for someone with no prior coding experience. A non-developer, completed the site in about 6–7 hours spread across three sessions.

However, “easy” is relative. While the AI (Claude) handles the actual coding, you still have to navigate several technical tools. Here is Gemini's breakdown of the difficulty based on the steps provided:

1. The “Easy” Parts (High Success Rate)

• Design & Content: Using Claude to generate the layout and pages is very fast. You describe what you want, and it gives you the code.
• Deployment: Using Vercel and GitHub is streamlined. Once set up, your site goes live almost instantly when you “push” changes.
• Backend Basics: Using Google Forms for a contact page and Google Analytics for tracking is straightforward and requires almost no coding.

2. The “Moderate” Parts (Where You Might Get Stuck)

• Environment Setup: You have to install Node.js, use the Terminal (command line), and work in VS Code. The author notes they hit errors like “command not found” immediately. You don’t need to know why these happen, but you need the patience to ask the AI how to fix them.
• Mobile Responsiveness: The site looked great on desktop right away, but the author had to do 4–5 rounds of fixes to make it look right on a phone. This requires a bit of “back-and-forth” with the AI to tweak CSS styling.

3. The “Tricky” Parts (Technical Hurdles)

• DNS & Domains: Connecting a custom domain involves managing three different platforms (Squarespace, Cloudflare, and Vercel). The author ran into a “site down” error because of conflicting settings between Cloudflare and Vercel.

Summary of Requirements

To follow these steps successfully, you don’t need to be a coder, but you do need:

• A “Tech-Adjacent” Mindset: You should be comfortable downloading software (VS Code, Node.js) and copy-pasting commands into a terminal.
• An AI Subscription: The author used the paid version of Claude ($20/mo or $200/yr) for the best results.
• Patience for Troubleshooting: Most of the “work” isn’t writing code; it’s fixing small errors that pop up during the setup and domain-linking phases.

Verdict

If you are comfortable following a tutorial and aren’t afraid of a terminal window, it is highly achievable. If you find installing new software or managing domain settings intimidating, you may still find it a bit frustrating.