Why website cloning?

As part of our effort to create on-brand vibe coding tools, we saw a common challenge—many product managers and non-developers struggle to explain their ideas or mock up the features they need. They write memos, use notes, and hop between tools, but the best way to communicate a product idea is often to vibe code a working example.

Here comes website cloning

This type of solution allows salespeople to validate new feature requests, show mockup ideas to customers, or let product managers ideate directly within the product itself. But “plain old” vibe coding tools fall short for these use cases—because they all start with a blank canvas.

In reality, most of these flows start from a real product or live site. Starting from that context—rather than a blank page—makes all the difference. The cloned version uses the same colors, design language, and components, which gives the next stage of the prototyping flow a real sense of continuity. If you want to design a new steering wheel, why start with four tires and a sketchbook? Start with a working car.

More than prototyping: modernization

And it’s not just about rapid prototyping. The ability to take an existing production site and convert it into clean React also opens up a world of opportunities for stack modernization. Imagine quickly migrating an old legacy site into a modern frontend using a headless CMS. It’s an incredibly helpful shortcut.

With great power…

But, as with any new technology, this power can be abused. We’re aware of the risks. Potential misuse includes:

• Phishing
• Replicating known sites
• Cloning banking or login authentication pages
• Cloning protected or paywalled content

We’ve put a lot of thought and effort into preventing this kind of misuse. Here’s what we do:

• Detect login-gated pages
• Detect paywalls, CAPTCHAs, and bot protections
• Detect high-risk phishing targets, such as popular login pages (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.)

Our cloning engine and API are designed not to circumvent these protections. If a site uses Cloudflare’s “bot fight mode” or throws up an “I’m under attack” CAPTCHA, that’s a strong signal: they don’t want to be cloned. Our AI actively tries to identify such signals and blocks attempts to regenerate those pages.

And let’s be real…

Bad actors don’t need our tools to replicate sites. Most of them just right-click and “Save Page As…” to download static HTML. They don’t care about clean React or LLM-friendly code—it’s actually more of a hassle for them.

But that doesn’t absolve us of responsibility. In a world where Scarlett Johansson’s voice can be cloned and misused (yes, that happened), it’s on us to ensure our tools are used ethically.

If you see something, say something

If you spot misuse of our system or see a site being cloned that you believe shouldn’t be, please let us know. You can report it here: copyright@animaapp.com

We’re building powerful tools for good—let’s make sure they stay that way.