The Problem
As an esports fan, I was tired of juggling between HLTV for CS2, VLR for Valorant, and Liquipedia for everything else. I wanted one platform that covered all games with real-time scores.
What I Built
esport.is — a unified esports platform covering CS2, Valorant, League of Legends, and Dota 2 with:
- Live scores updating every 30 seconds
- Elo-based rankings recalculated after every match
- Free prediction game with accuracy tracking
- Transfer tracker with hourly updates
- AI-powered news aggregation
Tech Stack
- Next.js 14 with App Router
- Vercel for hosting + edge functions
- Supabase for database + real-time subscriptions
- Multiple esports APIs (PandaScore, custom scrapers)
- Redis for caching live data
- Gemini AI for news generation
Architecture
The system pulls data from 5+ esports APIs every 30 seconds, normalizes it into a unified format, and serves it through a Next.js frontend with ISR for SEO and client-side polling for live updates.
Rankings use a modified Elo system that weights:
- Tournament tier (Major > qualifier)
- Recency (recent matches matter more)
- Opponent strength (beating #1 matters more than beating #50)
Prediction Game
The prediction game lets anyone pick match winners before games start. We track accuracy over time and have a global leaderboard. Upset picks (picking the underdog correctly) earn bonus XP.
We also compare community predictions against real-money Polymarket odds and flag "Sharp Picks" where the crowd disagrees with the market.
What I Learned
- Esports APIs are inconsistent — different providers format team names, tournament names, and scores differently. Normalization is half the battle.
- Live data caching is critical — without Redis, API costs would be astronomical.
- ISR + client polling gives the best of both worlds — SEO-friendly static pages that update in real time for active users.
Try It
esport.is — completely free, no account required.
API docs available if you want to build on the data.
What esports platforms do you use? Would love feedback from the dev community.
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