Product Update
Convex Chef, forked and extended
Convex Chef was a great demo of why Convex is a great backend choice for vibe coding. We forked it and kept building. If you used Chef and want a maintained platform with new features and models, this is the continuation.
Dan Cleary
Founder
January 28, 2026
Convex Chef was a great demo that showed why Convex is the best backend choice for AI coding.
In September they open-sourced, which essentially marked the point in time where they would stop adding new features and new models (like Opus 4.5).
We decided to fork Chef by Convex and run with it (some background on the story: Why we’re building a vibe-coding platform.
If you enjoyed using Chef and want a maintained path with new features and more model options, Converge will be a great fit.
What Convex Chef was
Chef was a vibe coding platform from the Convex team that was essentially a demo to show what vibe coding could look like when Convex was used as the backend.
It proved the idea, and in practice, Chef was better than most popular AI coding platforms. But Convex is a backend company, not an AI coding company, so it also left a lot of room for production polish and ongoing iteration.
What’s different in Converge
Project ownership and auth
Chef signs you in with your Convex account, so projects live in your Convex dashboard.
With Converge, you can sign up without a Convex account. You can still access and manage your backend through the embedded Convex dashboard inside each project.
New models
Converge adds newer model options (for example Opus 4.5), plus more providers overall. Chef has stopped adding models since Sonnet 4.5.
New product features
- Image upload in chat.
- Netlify deploys with staging and public domains.
More components out of the box
No WebContainers
Converge does not rely on WebContainers, so it works in non-Chromium browsers.
Best for
Converge is a better fit than Chef if:
- You want to build apps on Convex but with newer models
- You want to deploy to real domains and build products (not just demos)
Also, just to be clear, Converge is an independent fork, not an official Convex product.
FAQ
Is Converge an official Convex project?
No. Converge is an independent fork built by our team, and it runs on Convex.
Can I keep using Convex with Converge?
Yes! Every project made in Converge uses Convex as the backend.
Is Chef still usable?
Yes, but they don’t support newer models and aren’t actively building new features.
Where can I see the changes?
You can check out our changelog here.
Bottom line
Convex Chef proved the concept. We forked it to keep building the version that can ship real apps.
If that is what you want, start with Converge.