CigarEdge

A cigar price comparison engine — scraping, matching, and scoring deals across vendors.

I have been a fan of preimum cigars for a few years now, and I kept falling into the same annoyance each time I wanted to restock, I would have multiple tabs open comparing prices against vendors. There are some solutions out there, but I felt they were dated and left a lot of room for improvement. This is what inspired to me to start CigarEdge.com.

Stack: Python 3.12 / FastAPI, Next.js 14 / PostgreSQL

Github: cigar-edge

Learning Notes

Core Systems

Fuzzy Product Matching - Three-stage matching engine with confidence scoring
Deal Scoring - Percentile-based algorithm for surfacing price drops
Data Pipeline - Multi-source ingestion (CJ feed, HTML crawlers, catalog builder)

Architecture

Catalog Pattern in Practice - Brand > Line > Vitola > PackSize hierarchy

Development Map

Matching engine
Data pipeline
Backend
Deal scoring
MVP UI

Future Items

[] Price drop notifications
[] User accounts
[] Virtual Humidor
[] Shipping + tax total calculations