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Dev tools · May 4, 2026

Cryptick – free and open-source alternative to Minute Cryptic

Hi HN! I'm an amateur cryptic crossword solver and setter, who cut my teeth on Minute Cryptic. I liked that you could create custom clues on MC but was annoyed that it required creating an account to do. I wanted to create a free, open-source, and (as much as possible) anonymous version to make it easy to share clues online; not everything needs a user account to provide a good service to users. I'm primarily a backend developer so this was also a learning experience in creating a site with no backend; it's all vanilla client-side HTML / CSS / JS, built using Metalsmith.js, hosted…

Cryptick – free and open-source alternative to Minute Cryptic launched on May 4, 2026 with 5 votes, #2,008 of 20,538 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.

What it does

Cryptick is your free daily cryptic crossword clue. Solve the Clue of the Day, or create your own and share it with friends!

We will never use generative AI in the creation of cryptic clues or this website. Unfortunately, as this site is browser-based, we do require Javascript to befrom cryptick.wildvale.co.uk

In the maker’s words, at launch

Hi HN! I'm an amateur cryptic crossword solver and setter, who cut my teeth on Minute Cryptic. I liked that you could create custom clues on MC but was annoyed that it required creating an account to do. I wanted to create a free, open-source, and (as much as possible) anonymous version to make it easy to share clues…

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