Should you build your own Letterboxd?
A social diary for films: log what you watch, rate it, review it, and read everyone else's takes.
The logging half of Letterboxd is trivial: a table of films, a date, a rating, a note. The half people actually open the app for is everyone else, friends' four-star shrugs, review pages with thousands of jokes, lists that function as film school syllabi, and the year-end stats that only mean something because they are comparable. A one-shot build gives you a private diary with no one in it, and you will still need TMDB to get posters and metadata that do not look broken. If you genuinely only want a watch log, build it and enjoy the speed. If you want the film internet, you are not building the film internet this weekend.
ENOriginal research content in English. Original prompt preserved in English.
Build a local-first personal film diary web app. Single user, no accounts, no cloud, no telemetry.
Stack, non-negotiable:
- Next.js 15 with the App Router, TypeScript, Tailwind.
- SQLite via better-sqlite3, one file at ./data/diary.db, schema created on first run.
- No auth, no external services except TMDB for metadata.
Secrets:
- .env.local with TMDB_API_KEY. Commit .env.example only. Fail loudly with a readable message if the key is missing.
Data model:
- films: tmdb_id (primary key), title, year, director, runtime, poster_path, overview, cached_at.
- entries: id, tmdb_id, watched_on (date), rating (0.5 to 5 in half steps, nullable), review (text, nullable), rewatch (boolean), liked (boolean), created_at.
- watchlist: tmdb_id, added_at, note.
Features in scope:
- Search box that hits TMDB search, shows posters and years, one click to log. Cache the film row locally so the app works offline for anything already logged.
- Log form: watched date defaults to today, half-star rating widget, review textarea, rewatch and liked toggles.
- Diary view grouped by month, newest first, poster grid plus compact list toggle.
- Film detail page: local metadata, every entry you have for it, rating history.
- Watchlist page with add from search and a one-click promote to a diary entry.
- Stats page: films per year and per month, rating distribution histogram, top directors by count, total runtime in hours and days, longest streak of consecutive days with a log.
- CSV import that accepts the Letterboxd export format (Name, Year, Watched Date, Rating, Review, Rewatch) and matches to TMDB with a manual disambiguation queue for anything ambiguous.
- CSV export of everything.
Explicitly out of scope: any social features, follower graphs, comments, aggregate ratings, streaming availability, mobile apps, push notifications, deployment config.
Deliver: working app, README with setup in under five commands, seed script that inserts three sample entries so the stats page is not empty on first load.The prompt opens pre-filled in your agent. Review it before running. · this prompt is generated from the build plan · improve it via PR
What would building your own look like?
A local film diary that searches TMDB for a title, logs a watch date, rating and review, and shows your history plus a stats page.
What you will need
- TMDB API key for film metadata and posters
- Node 20+
- SQLite (no server to run)
The paid tier is mostly a tip jar with benefits: no ads, better stats, watchlist filtering by streaming service, and a few power-user views. People pay because the free product already earned a place in their routine and the annual price is roughly a cinema ticket. The value being purchased is not features, it is continued access to a place where their taste is legible to other people who care about films. A private diary cannot sell that at any price.
xEvery other human: friends' ratings, popular reviews, comment threads
xCurated and community lists, which are most of the discovery value
xAggregate ratings and the histogram that tells you if a film is divisive or just bad
xMobile apps, offline logging, share cards, streaming availability data
xImporting your existing history back out of anything without a CSV wrangle
Nothing worth pointing at. That’s why the prompt exists.
How much does Letterboxd cost?
- Monthly billing
- $1.58/mo$1.58/mo
- Per year
- $18.96/yr$18.96/yr
- On a Brazilian card, with 3.5% IOF
- R$8.26/moR$99.08/yr
Saved to My list. You will see a notice on this site when the price changes.
You complete the purchase on Letterboxd’s site. Vibe Radar does not handle payments.
Is it cheaper to build or buy Letterboxd?
Adjust the numbers: hours to build, your hourly rate, running costs and the subscription price.
Over 24 months, subscribing is cheaper.
Starting hours estimated from the analysis (one sitting). Does not price what you give up (support, integrations, security).
Can I rebuild Letterboxd?
Not really. Letterboxd’s value is not the code: The moat is a decade of reviews, lists and rating distributions that only exist because everyone else showed up first. See the honest breakdown above.
How much does Letterboxd cost?
Letterboxd costs about $1.58/mo (Pro, checked 10/20/2026), which is $18.96 per year.
What do I lose by replacing Letterboxd?
Honestly: Every other human: friends' ratings, popular reviews, comment threads; Curated and community lists, which are most of the discovery value; Aggregate ratings and the histogram that tells you if a film is divisive or just bad; Mobile apps, offline logging, share cards, streaming availability data; Importing your existing history back out of anything without a CSV wrangle. If any of those are load-bearing for you, keep paying.
Is there an open-source alternative to Letterboxd?
No mature open-source alternative worth pointing at, which is exactly why the one-shot prompt on this page exists.