PathFinder

Algorithm Analysis Dashboard

Ready. Draw walls or move nodes!

Start

Target

Wall

Searched

Optimal Path

How do the search methods compare?

Explores equally in all directions like a ripple in water. Guarantees the shortest path on an unweighted grid, but expands many unnecessary nodes.

Plunges aggressively down a single path until it hits a wall, then backtracks. It is fast, but rarely ever finds the shortest route.

Uses a priority queue to guarantee the lowest cost path. On an unweighted grid like this, it behaves exactly like Breadth-First Search.

Uses a "Manhattan Distance" heuristic to actively guess where the target is. It ignores bad directions, making it the smartest algorithm.