Fretly is live, as of July 13, 2026
The first public release of Fretly is here. This is the story, and what is inside.
I am happy to announce the first public release of Fretly.
Fretly is a natural progression, and a big step up, from what started as Fretboard Knowledge. Back in 2005, during a couple of years working as a software developer, I envisioned and built a first version: a desktop application called Fretboard Knowledge. Only now, more than twenty years later, is it becoming what it was always meant to be.
Fretly is a complete, interactive browser application for the advancing guitarist.
What is already in Fretly
- Every scale, sorted into a normal mode with the most useful scales, and an advanced mode where every theoretical possibility can be found.
- The most common scale fingerings, in development and growing week to week.
- A large library of chords.
- Chord voicings.
- Suites: chord charts with room for complex rhythms, chord-diagram sheets and tablature, and the Collection, a study book that pulls everything together, including arpeggios and scales generated from your charts.
- The Fretboard Lab on the scales and chords pages, where you can experiment with visual layers laid over scales and chords.
- Scales, diagrams and chords from anywhere in the app can be added to your own collections, and you can build your own from scratch.
A word of honesty
Think of this as a start-up. I am a jazz guitarist and guitar teacher from the Netherlands. I studied jazz guitar at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and have taught full time since 2007 at my own guitar school.
Many hours and many euros have already gone into Fretly, and I intend to keep it growing and improving. It is by no means a finished product, and I am a sole operator, so you may run into the occasional bug or something behaving unexpectedly. But real care has gone into making the things I consider important work well at this first release.
A few things are not yet exhaustively tested, or are still partly in development:
- Dark mode
- The mobile interface, and other small screens
- Very in-depth chart and tablature creation
- Diagram editing
- Alternate tunings
Still to come
Alongside constant improvements to what is already here:
- Better sound, and deeper sound integration.
- A phrase analyser: select a phrase from tablature, see which scales it fits, and generate a study book from it.
- And much more.
Founding members
Founding members are the first group in. You get everything, new features and all, at the founding price. €5 a month is the launch price, and paid tiers will come later. Founding members keep full access for a good while at the lowest price, with plenty of notice before anything changes.
Thanks for reading, and for playing. Alexander Stakenburg, Fretly