Can ChatGPT Write Code? A Developer’s Honest Assessment (2025)

Can ChatGPT actually write production-ready code? As a developer who’s been using AI coding tools for 2 years, here’s my honest assessment.

Short Answer: Yes, With Important Caveats

ChatGPT (especially GPT-4o) can write code that works. For simple to moderate tasks, it’s genuinely useful. For complex, large-scale systems, it requires significant human guidance and review.

What ChatGPT Code Actually Looks Like

Things ChatGPT Does Well

• Simple functions: Sorting algorithms, data parsing, API calls
• Boilerplate code: CRUD operations, component templates, database schemas
• Bug explanation: “Why does this code fail?” — often excellent answers
• Code translation: Convert Python to JavaScript, etc.
• Documentation: Writing docstrings and README files
• Test generation: Unit tests for existing functions

Things ChatGPT Does Poorly

• Complex architecture: Designing systems with many interacting components
• Performance optimization: Understanding subtle performance tradeoffs
• Security edge cases: Can introduce SQL injection, XSS if you’re not careful
• Large codebases: No memory of your entire codebase (use Cursor for this)
• Cutting-edge libraries: May use outdated APIs for recent packages

Real Test: Build a REST API

I asked ChatGPT to build a simple Node.js REST API with user authentication. Results:

• ✅ Generated working Express.js boilerplate
• ✅ Correct JWT implementation
• ✅ Proper password hashing with bcrypt
• ❌ Used deprecated API syntax in one middleware
• ❌ Missing rate limiting (security concern)
• ❌ Error handling was basic, not production-grade

Verdict: 70% production-ready. Required experienced developer review to complete safely.

ChatGPT vs Claude for Coding

Aspect	ChatGPT (GPT-4o)	Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Code quality	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Code explanation	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Context window	128K tokens	200K tokens
Debugging	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

For Serious Coding: Use Cursor Instead

ChatGPT is useful for quick code snippets. But for real development work, Cursor is vastly superior because:

• Understands your entire codebase, not just pasted snippets
• Edits multiple files simultaneously
• Reads error messages and fixes bugs contextually
• Same underlying models (Claude + GPT-4o) but with full context

Try Cursor (Better for Coding) →
Try ChatGPT →