Can't rank a big list in your head? Paste it here and just answer a run of quick this or that? questions. sorter turns your gut calls into a complete, ordered ranking — and it asks the fewest questions it can.
Ask someone to put fifteen things in order and they stall. The mind is bad at holding a whole ranking at once — but it's excellent at a single yes/no: this one, or that one? A preference sorter leans entirely on that strength. It never asks you to place an item at "number 7"; it only ever shows you two things and asks which you like more. String enough of those tiny, easy decisions together and a full, strict order falls out the other end.
The trick is that you do not have to compare every pair. If you already told sorter you prefer A over B, and B over C, it never bothers asking about A versus C — it infers it. That's why the number of questions grows gently, not explosively:
| Items on your list | Every possible pair | Questions sorter actually asks (about) |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | 28 | ~15 |
| 16 | 120 | ~44 |
| 32 | 496 | ~120 |
| 50 | 1,225 | ~215 |
Under the hood it's a merge sort — the same method a computer uses to order numbers — except the comparison "which is bigger?" is answered by you instead of by arithmetic. Merge sort is efficient precisely because it reuses every answer: each comparison you make helps place not just two items but whole groups at once.
These three tools look similar but answer different questions. Pick by what you actually want out the other end.
| Sorter (this tool) | Tier list | Group poll | |
|---|---|---|---|
| You end up with | One strict order, 1 to N | Buckets (S / A / B …) | A group's winner |
| How you decide | Many quick A-or-B calls | Drag each item into a tier | Everyone votes once |
| Best when | You must break every tie | Rough grouping is enough | Many people, one question |
| Who's ranking | Just you, carefully | Just you, loosely | A whole group |
If a rough "these are S-tier, these are junk" is all you need, a tier list is faster. If you need to settle a real order — your top ten albums, a draft board, the actual best pizza topping with no cop-outs — a sorter is the honest way to get there, because it forces a decision on every close pair.
sorter runs entirely in your browser. Your list and your answers are never sent anywhere — the finished ranking is encoded into the page's link, so sharing it is your choice and yours alone. Send the result link and a friend sees your exact ranking; send the plain list link and they get a blank copy to sort for themselves. Comparing two people's orders of the same list is half the fun.
Films in a series, an artist's albums, players for a fantasy draft, candidate baby names, job offers, cities to live in, D&D classes, pizza toppings, holiday destinations, features to build next, the group chat's favorite snacks. Anything you could argue about is something you can settle here.