Overview
ReplayChess is a free, open-source chess platform built around one idea: chess history should be something you play, not something you watch. You watch a famous game, the narrator pauses at the critical moment, you find the move, and the video moves on. You never learn whether you could have won from there. ReplayChess drops you into exactly that moment and lets you play it out for real.
Key Features
Play as a legend. More than fifty players from chess history, grouped by era from Romantic to Contemporary: Morphy, Capablanca, Tal, Fischer, Kasparov, Anand, Carlsen and more. Each has a profile and a set of famous games with the decisive positions ready to play.
Play from any opening. An encyclopedia of more than 3,600 ECO-coded openings, each with the moves, the FEN and a board diagram, every one playable from its resulting position. Selected openings carry narrated explanations of the key ideas.
Real-time multiplayer. Rating-matched opponents with time controls, private challenge links a friend can open without an account, and tournaments.
Play the machine. Stockfish compiled to WebAssembly runs in the browser at four strengths, up to roughly 2200.
Post-game analysis. A match rate against the original moves, a marker at the first move where you left the grandmaster's line, and a practice mode to replay any position against the engine.
Open source. MIT-licensed. Next.js 15, React 19, TypeScript, Prisma on PostgreSQL, Clerk, Socket.IO and Stockfish WASM. Installs as a PWA on phone and desktop.
Use Cases
- Video watchers who find the move and want to finish the game.
- Club players practising the middlegames their repertoire actually produces.
- Coaches sending a specific historical position to a student and reviewing the divergence report.
- Friends comparing match rates on the same Tal sacrifice.
- Developers reading a working real-time multiplayer Next.js app.
Getting Started
Try a legendary position without an account from the Try page. Sign in with email or Google to play people, queue for matchmaking, or browse the full catalogue. Choose a mode from the Play page: Quick Match, Challenge a Friend, Play the Machine, Play as Legend, or Play an Opening.
Pricing
Free to play. The Player plan, $4.99 per month or $50 per year, unlocks the full legend and opening catalogue. No advertisements on either tier. Built by one developer, Rohit Pandit, in public.
