ChessNotes isn't a startup, isn't a product designed on a whiteboard. It's the tool I wanted for myself — and since I couldn't find it, I decided to build it.
I've been playing chess since I was a teenager. I'm not a master — I'm one of those, and there are thousands of us, who sit between 1500 and 2000 ELO, who take the game seriously, who puts time into study but doesn't have a full-time coach. The profile is recognizable: constant need to improve the repertoire, but without the continuous guidance of someone telling you exactly what to study.
For years I tried everything. Thick books I opened once and then never again. Chessable courses that started well and ended halfway through. PGN files scattered across folders I never reopened. Lichess studies I shared and then forgot where I'd put them. Every tool solved one piece, none closed the loop.
The turning point came one evening, in the middle of an online game. I was in a Sicilian Najdorf I'd studied three times in the two weeks before. Move eight: a standard line. The right move, the move I'd noted in three different PGN files — I couldn't find it. I lost the game in twenty moves. That's when I realized the problem wasn't the study. It was that I was studying badly.
Chessable is great, but built around the courses — the personal repertoire is a second-class citizen, and MoveTrainer still uses SM-2, an algorithm outdated compared to FSRS-5. Lichess has studies but zero serious spaced repetition. ChessBase is powerful but it's a heavy desktop software, not designed for the daily flow. Anki with chess addons works, but it takes sysadmin-level maintenance and the experience is anything but smooth.
None of these alternatives could do three things together: let me build MY repertoire in a visual tree, drill it with latest-generation spaced repetition, close the loop with my real games. Every tool was a compromise — either you paid, or there was no FSRS, or no Lichess import, or the built-in engine analysis was missing.
I opened a code editor in the summer of 2024. I wrote the first lines of what would become the ChessNotes canvas. The initial goal was absurd — a tool just for me, with drag-and-drop on the nodes and a simple drill. The scope grew organically, every feature born from a real problem lived first-hand.
"Every time I paid for a course I felt like I was studying someone else's repertoire. I wanted a place to build my own — no compromises, no subscriptions."
ChessNotes is an independent tool. No investors, no exit strategy, no imposed growth plans. All the code is public on GitHub, the infrastructure runs on Firebase and Vercel with minimal operating costs. There's no one I need to show quarterly metrics to.
This independence is why I can promise it'll stay free. A project that doesn't need to generate ROI on outside capital doesn't need to push you into a paywall. If in the future I add truly complex features (multiplayer coach mode, internal tournaments, something along those lines) there might be an optional plan — but the core you use today will never disappear behind a paywall.
I'm using ChessNotes every day for my own study. Actually using it, not for demos. When I find a bug, I fix it. When a feature is missing, I build it. I am user zero and that means the product will evolve toward what serious players need, not toward what maximizes an acquisition funnel.
No hidden premium tier, no cap on variations or drills. The core — editor, FSRS-5, Stockfish, Lichess import — stays free. Promise on the public repo, not in the FAQ.
Export to standard PGN any time. No lock-in, no proprietary format. If ChessNotes shuts down tomorrow, your repertoire walks out intact and opens anywhere.
Six coherent features, not sixty half-integrated ones. Every feature was added only after living the problem first-hand — and only when a minimal solution stopped being enough.
Build, train, play, refine. ChessNotes is for those who've already figured out that studying openings is a process, not content consumption. If you're looking for pre-packaged courses, Chessable is still the right choice.
The roadmap isn't a marketing doc. It's a list of things I want to build because I'll need them: generic PGN import (to bring in Chessable or ChessBase repertoires), full offline mode, Lichess integration beyond study import (direct Lichess game analysis, like we already do with chess.com), collaborative drilling where two players quiz each other.
Above all that, the goal is to not lose simplicity. Every new feature must pass the test: do I really need it? Do I use it? Does it make the study experience better for those already here, or complicate it? If the answer is "maybe" or "it's cool," it stays out. Better a working essential suite than a broken Swiss Army knife.
If you're reading this page and thinking "this is exactly what I need," then it's for you. If you think "X is missing," write to me — an email, a GitHub issue, a message somewhere. That's how ChessNotes has grown so far: one person at a time telling me a real problem, and one feature at a time to solve it.
then ChessNotes is for you too. Open a free account, import your first study and start building for real. If you find bugs, write to me. If something's missing, write to me anyway.
Chess player · Developer · Italian