Every sudoku site I've ever used has the same two problems: ads everywhere, and a mouse-only UI that makes fast solving feel clunky. I play sudoku to think, not to fight with my browser.

So I built my own. It's called Kodiak Sudoku — free, no ads, keyboard-first, with vim bindings and a leaderboard that doesn't lie. Here's what went into it.

The stack

Next.js 15 with the App Router

React 19

TypeScript throughout

Supabase for the database (auth, leaderboard storage, daily puzzle state)

Drizzle ORM on top of Supabase

Tailwind CSS

Vercel for hosting + Edge Config for feature flags

Nothing exotic — just a stack I could move fast with and trust in production.

The three things I actually cared about

1. Free with no ads

This sounds simple but it shapes every decision. No ad SDK to load, no layout shift, no third-party trackers. The page is fast because there's nothing slowing it down.…