Engineers Replace SaaS Features With LLMs Quickly

Pragmatic Engineer author reports rebuilding a testimonials feature on pragmaticengineer.com in 20 minutes using Codex, replacing a $120/year Shoutout.io dependency after encountering broken billing. The piece details the steps taken—JSON storage, compile-time HTML generation, and Netlify deployment—and argues that narrow, static SaaS features are increasingly easy to replace with LLMs. It warns that ongoing value like compliance or analytics remains harder to replicate.