Qiita Announces Latest Tech Trend Analysis: 'Indie Hacking x AI' Articles Up 15.5x YoY. Observing the Shift from 'Using AI' to 'Building with AI'
Qiita Corporation analyzed articles from 2024 onwards, revealing a massive shift in development trends. Articles tagged with both 'Indie Hacking' and 'AI' surged 15.5 times year-over-year in Q1 2026. This data underscores a transition in the engineering landscape from simply using AI as a coding assistant to utilizing autonomous AI agents to build entire systems.
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: April 23, 2026 at 22:00
- 🔍 Collected: April 23, 2026 at 13:31
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: April 23, 2026 at 15:10 (1h 38m after Collected)
Qiita Corporation (Headquarters: Nakamura-ku, Nagoya, President: Kensuke Shibata), a group company of Ateam Holdings Inc. which develops diverse IT services through creativity and technical prowess, and the operator of the engineering knowledge recording and sharing service 'Qiita', has conducted a proprietary trend analysis. Focusing on recent data from 2024 onwards, drawn from its massive base of 1.5 million registered members and over 1 million total posted articles, the results report the observation of a shift from 'using AI' to 'building with AI (agentification)'.
Shift from 'Using AI' to 'Building with AI (Agentification)'
Articles with AI-related tags surged in 2025, more than doubling year-over-year
Articles on Qiita tagged with AI-related keywords have been gradually increasing since 2023. Compared to 7,477 articles in 2023, the number grew by about 1.2 times to 9,123 articles in 2024, and surged rapidly in 2025 to 18,779 articles, roughly doubling from the previous year.
One background factor for this rapid growth is the development of reasoning models. In September 2024, OpenAI announced the 'OpenAI o1' series, designed to solve difficult problems, demonstrating a dramatic evolution in code generation capabilities and advanced mathematical reasoning on par with the top 500 US students. Furthermore, in January 2025, the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek announced a new AI model, 'DeepSeek-R1'. As highly advanced AI models became easily accessible to individuals, development incorporating reasoning models expanded rapidly. (*)
Thus, the progress in social implementation of 'the ability of AI itself to think logically and complete complex processes' is believed to have decisively changed the role of AI in the development field.
[Graph/Chart context: Number of articles linked with AI-related tags. The high number in December is due to the 'Qiita Advent Calendar' event.]
Articles linking both 'Indie Hacking (Personal Development)' and AI tags surged from late 2025, entering the top 10 tag ranking
On Qiita, the number of articles linking both the 'Indie Hacking' tag and AI-related tags recorded a dramatic increase starting in 2025. While there were 73 articles in 2024, this grew 3.7 times to 271 articles in 2025, and reached 465 articles between January and March 2026, quickly surpassing the total number of articles posted in the entire year of 2025. Notably, the number of articles posted between January and March 2025 was 30, meaning a growth of approximately 15.5 times year-over-year was recorded.
What is particularly noteworthy is that this result is definitive data corroborating prior government predictions becoming reality. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' trend survey in July 2025 predicted that 'AI agents, which automatically execute processes due to the evolution of reasoning models, will become widespread.' (*)
Moreover, between 2024 and 2025, as mentioned earlier, tools like 'OpenAI o1', 'DeepSeek', and 'Cursor' spread widely. The style of individual engineers not 'writing code' themselves, but rather 'giving instructions to AI and reviewing' became established.
From this data, it can be said that there has been a transition from a phase where individual engineers 'had AI write code little by little' to a phase of 'building with AI', where they 'convey specifications and have the AI build the entire system.'
[Graph/Chart context: Number of articles linking both the 'Indie Hacking' tag and AI-related tags]
Top 10 Ranking of Tags Linked to Posted Articles
In the ranking of tags linked to articles posted in March 2026, 'AI' took 1st place, continuing from the previous month. 'Python', the standard language for AI implementation, was 2nd.
A standout point is that 'Claude Code' has steadily risen in rank every month from 27th place in November 2025, and finally surged to 3rd place this month. Additionally, the keyword 'AI Agent' entering the ranking at 9th place suggests that engineers' interests are shifting beyond mere technology acquisition to the construction of workflows on 'how to make AI operate autonomously.'
Furthermore, 'Indie Hacking' also rose in rank for the 4th consecutive month, breaking into the top 10. These ranking transitions vividly demonstrate that the spread of AI agents has dramatically increased individual development efficiency, and a new form of personal development—'building systems together with AI'—is taking root.
[Graph/Chart context: Top 10 tags attached to articles posted in March 2026 and their movement from the previous month]
'Qiita' will continue to provide valuable touchpoints for both companies and users through various engineer-related services, expanding the possibilities of platform utilization.
*... Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications 'Reiwa 7 (2025) Information and Communications White Paper' Part 2
Shift from 'Using AI' to 'Building with AI (Agentification)'
Articles with AI-related tags surged in 2025, more than doubling year-over-year
Articles on Qiita tagged with AI-related keywords have been gradually increasing since 2023. Compared to 7,477 articles in 2023, the number grew by about 1.2 times to 9,123 articles in 2024, and surged rapidly in 2025 to 18,779 articles, roughly doubling from the previous year.
One background factor for this rapid growth is the development of reasoning models. In September 2024, OpenAI announced the 'OpenAI o1' series, designed to solve difficult problems, demonstrating a dramatic evolution in code generation capabilities and advanced mathematical reasoning on par with the top 500 US students. Furthermore, in January 2025, the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek announced a new AI model, 'DeepSeek-R1'. As highly advanced AI models became easily accessible to individuals, development incorporating reasoning models expanded rapidly. (*)
Thus, the progress in social implementation of 'the ability of AI itself to think logically and complete complex processes' is believed to have decisively changed the role of AI in the development field.
[Graph/Chart context: Number of articles linked with AI-related tags. The high number in December is due to the 'Qiita Advent Calendar' event.]
Articles linking both 'Indie Hacking (Personal Development)' and AI tags surged from late 2025, entering the top 10 tag ranking
On Qiita, the number of articles linking both the 'Indie Hacking' tag and AI-related tags recorded a dramatic increase starting in 2025. While there were 73 articles in 2024, this grew 3.7 times to 271 articles in 2025, and reached 465 articles between January and March 2026, quickly surpassing the total number of articles posted in the entire year of 2025. Notably, the number of articles posted between January and March 2025 was 30, meaning a growth of approximately 15.5 times year-over-year was recorded.
What is particularly noteworthy is that this result is definitive data corroborating prior government predictions becoming reality. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' trend survey in July 2025 predicted that 'AI agents, which automatically execute processes due to the evolution of reasoning models, will become widespread.' (*)
Moreover, between 2024 and 2025, as mentioned earlier, tools like 'OpenAI o1', 'DeepSeek', and 'Cursor' spread widely. The style of individual engineers not 'writing code' themselves, but rather 'giving instructions to AI and reviewing' became established.
From this data, it can be said that there has been a transition from a phase where individual engineers 'had AI write code little by little' to a phase of 'building with AI', where they 'convey specifications and have the AI build the entire system.'
[Graph/Chart context: Number of articles linking both the 'Indie Hacking' tag and AI-related tags]
Top 10 Ranking of Tags Linked to Posted Articles
In the ranking of tags linked to articles posted in March 2026, 'AI' took 1st place, continuing from the previous month. 'Python', the standard language for AI implementation, was 2nd.
A standout point is that 'Claude Code' has steadily risen in rank every month from 27th place in November 2025, and finally surged to 3rd place this month. Additionally, the keyword 'AI Agent' entering the ranking at 9th place suggests that engineers' interests are shifting beyond mere technology acquisition to the construction of workflows on 'how to make AI operate autonomously.'
Furthermore, 'Indie Hacking' also rose in rank for the 4th consecutive month, breaking into the top 10. These ranking transitions vividly demonstrate that the spread of AI agents has dramatically increased individual development efficiency, and a new form of personal development—'building systems together with AI'—is taking root.
[Graph/Chart context: Top 10 tags attached to articles posted in March 2026 and their movement from the previous month]
'Qiita' will continue to provide valuable touchpoints for both companies and users through various engineer-related services, expanding the possibilities of platform utilization.
*... Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications 'Reiwa 7 (2025) Information and Communications White Paper' Part 2