Learning and careers decision
Chessigma
A competent technical user can reproduce the core free analysis and report features in about one week and maintain them cheaply; the hosted product's coach/premium polish would remain the main difference.
Visit website↗Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Chessigma alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- User imports or fetches games → run Stockfish analysis on each move → compute centipawn loss and grade moves → render interactive board, evaluation graph and per-game report → optionally save reports for the user.
What it still won’t have
- Polished AI Supercoach chat and training modules
- Curated puzzles, leaderboards and community features
- Founding-class perks and guarantees
- Marketing, UX polish and reliability of the hosted product
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 4 seats.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal self-hosted chess-analysis web app using Next.js (React) frontend, Node/Express backend, Postgres for storage, and Stockfish 17 via WASM (client-side) or a server-side CPU worker. Core features in-scope: fetch games from Lichess and Chess.com public APIs and accept PGN upload; run per-move Stockfish analysis and compute centipawn loss and move grades; auto-detect openings; generate and store per-game reports; interactive analysis board with move navigation and evaluation graph; user account and saved-username support. Out of scope: AI chat coach, paid subscription flow, puzzles, leaderboards, and advanced training modules. Require: error handling for provider API failures and malformed PGNs, authentication, basic tests for import/analysis/report generation, and deployment scripts (Docker + cloud VPS).
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Build verdict base78
- An open-source build was found+5
- 4 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- Evidence score89
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 4
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productChessigma – Free Unlimited Chess Game Analysis & Reports
- official productChessigma – Free Unlimited Chess Game Analysis & Reports (features)
- official pricingPricing – Founding Class #2 | Chessigma
- open sourceGuillaumeSD/Chesskit
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
