A browser-based tool for generating and optimising seating plans. Enter your guest list, set constraints (who should sit near whom, who should avoid whom), and let the solver find the best arrangement across your tables.
State is auto-saved to localStorage. Export to JSON to back up or share a plan.
npm install
npm run dev
Then open http://localhost:5173.
If you have just installed, just also works.
Click Table setup in the top bar. Add long (rectangular) tables or circular tables, set the number of seats, and optionally enable head seats at either end of a long table. Click Confirm layout when done.
Changing the layout clears any existing plan and saved layouts.
Click Edit in the Guests panel and type one guest per line:
Jane Smith, Bride
Sam Jones, Groom
Alex Lee, Bride, Younger
Pat Morgan
Group labels are optional. Each guest can have zero, one, or several comma-separated groups after their name. The solver uses groups as a secondary tiebreaker: it tries to avoid seating two guests from the same group next to each other, while always prioritising explicit constraints first.
You can also Upload a CSV or Excel spreadsheet — the name column is detected automatically, and a group, category, dimension, gender, or sex column (if present) is used as the group label.
Constraints are weighted preferences, not hard rules. The solver tries to satisfy as many as possible.
Good Adjacent — pairs of guests who should sit next to each other. Each pair has a strength:
- High — direct neighbours only
- Med — direct neighbours or directly opposite
- Low — any nearby seat counts
Avoid Adjacent — pairs who should not sit next to each other.
Head Seats — mark individual guests as preferring or avoiding the end seats of a long table.
Tip: the more constraints you add, the harder it is to satisfy them all. If one guest appears in many "Good Adjacent" pairs, the solver can only place them next to so many people at once. The Constraint Conflicts panel (shown automatically when issues are detected) flags guests who have more constraints than can realistically be satisfied.
Click Shuffle to generate six candidate plans. The solver runs a randomised local-search: it seeds candidate arrangements, then iteratively swaps seats to improve the score, and returns the best options.
Use the Effort slider to trade speed for quality — higher effort means more search iterations.
The Alternatives panel on the right lists all six candidates with their scores. Click any to load it as the active plan.
The Score panel breaks down the active plan:
- Good pairs met vs. total
- Bad adjacencies
- Head seat constraints satisfied
- Group points (same-group adjacencies avoided)
Hover over a guest name to highlight their seat in the layout. Drag guest chips to swap seats manually, or drag someone to the Holding Area to leave their seat empty.
- Save to library — bookmark the current plan to compare against future shuffles. Click a saved name to rename it.
- Export Data — download a JSON file containing guests, constraints, and all saved layouts.
- Import Data — restore from a previously exported file.
- Print — print-optimised layout (monochrome, full names).