Comparison

Chess vs Chess ⁺

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Chess

Enhance your chess skills with over 1500 tactical exercises drawn from real games. This app provides hints, explanations, and refutations to help beginners improve their play and learn new combinations. It acts as a personal coach, adapting to your progress and offering interactive lessons.

Highlights
  • Over 1500 tactical exercises
  • Hints and explanations
  • Refutations of mistakes
  • Interactive theoretical lessons
  • Progress monitoring (ELO rating)
  • Offline play
Features
Read full description

If you are a beginner, you just cannot afford to give away your piece in 1 move, presuming, of course, that you wish to improve your play! Another thing you cannot afford is to miss a chance of grabbing an undefended piece of your opponent's! This course includes more than 1500 exercises with lots of pieces on the board. Such a great number of exercises makes this course an excellent tool for quick training of chess beginners. The course is intended for players who are already acquainted with the rules of the game. Even if you study and solve only 20% of exercises you are sure to improve your chess skills and not to miss a chance to take an undefended piece in your practical game! All the exercises are taken from practical games and arranged according to the names of pieces and difficulty levels. This course is in the series Chess King Learn (https://learn.chessking.com/), which is an unprecedented chess teaching method. In the series are included courses in tactics, strategy, openings, middle game, and endgame, split by levels from beginners to experienced players, and even professional players. With the help of this course, you can improve your chess knowledge, learn new tactical tricks and combinations, and consolidate the acquired knowledge into practice. The program acts as a coach who gives tasks to solve and helps to solve them if you get stuck. It will give you hints, explanations and show you even striking refutation of the mistakes you might make. Advantages of the program: • High quality examples, all double-checked for correctness • You need to enter all key moves, required by the teacher • Different levels of complexity of the tasks • Various goals, which need to be reached in the problems • The program gives hint if an error is made • For typical mistaken moves, the refutation is shown • You can play out any position of the tasks against the computer • Interactive theoretical lessons • Structured table of contents • The program monitors the change in the rating (ELO) of the player during the learning process • Test mode with flexible settings • Possibility to bookmark favorite exercises • The application is adapted to the bigger screen of a tablet • The application does not require an internet connection The course includes a free part, in which you can test the program. Lessons offered in the free version is fully functional. They allow you to test the application in real world conditions before releasing the following topics: 1. Part 1 1.1. Winning a knight 1.2. Winning a bishop 1.3. Winning a rook 1.4. Winning a queen 2. Part 2. Win a piece 2.1. Level 1 2.2. Level 2 2.3. Level 3 2.4. Level 4 2.5. Level 5 2.6. Level 6 2.7. Level 7 2.8. Level 8

About

Chess ⁺

Enhance your chess abilities with this comprehensive training application. It offers a vast array of puzzles, tactical exercises, and learning modes for players of all levels. Track your progress with live statistics and enjoy a visually engaging experience.

Highlights
  • 2D & 3D chess pieces
  • Hundreds of levels
  • Thousands of exercises
  • Tactics training
  • Opening and endgame practice
  • Checkmate puzzles
  • Learning mode with hints
Features
Read full description

The most advanced chess training app. Improve your skills, learn tactics and strategies. Chess + was created with the goal to improve chess skills of every player. This app is perfect for any amateur or professional. Difficulty of tasks is dynamically adjusted to the skills and previous performance. Features: ● 2D & 3D chess pieces ● Hundreds of levels ● Thousands of exercises ● Tactics training ● Opening and endgame training and practice ● Checkmate puzzles ● Time and move limit puzzles ● Learning mode with best move hints ● Play chess in infinite rematch fights ● Live chess statistics and leaderboards ● Game boosters ● Mistake preventing (Learn how to play without mistakes in your chess games) ● Amazing 3D chess world, with cartoon graphics. ● No advertising Chess + is an offline application. You don't need internet to play online, but you can switch to online play using our other app. Play chess and learn various strategies and compare your results with friends. Chess + is completely free to play app, but you can purchase some optional in-game items. Download this free chess game and let the journey begin!

Screenshots

Chess4 screens
Chess ⁺4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ratings volume: Chess ⁺ at 2.9K against Chess's 11. Chess ⁺ also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.5). Chess's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 85%) and iOS requirement (8.0 vs 11.0). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Chess sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Chess ⁺ sells 7 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Chess ⁺ holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chess ⁺ has 2.9K ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 100% of Chess's written reviews are positive against 85% of Chess ⁺'s, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chess ships an update every 6 weeks, Chess ⁺ every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 10, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Chess versus Chess ⁺: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChessChess ⁺
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (11 ratings)4.7 (2.9K ratings) — better
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews — better85.3% of reviews
Number of ratings112.9K — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeks — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS8.0 — better11.0
Further details — not scored
Size42 MB57 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperChess KingEntertainment 4Media AG

Customer experience

Chess

All ratings11 ratings
Positive81.8%
Neutral9.1%
Negative9.1%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Chess ⁺

All ratings2,866 ratings
Positive92.0%
Neutral5.3%
Negative2.7%
Written reviews184 reviews
Positive85.3%
Neutral6.0%
Negative8.7%

Bugs and requests

Chess

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Chess ⁺

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • AI freezing and not making moves
  • Game progress and achievements being reset
  • Connectivity issues with login and cloud sync

Requested features

3 requests
  • Ability to analyze and save past games
  • Option to play against other users online
  • More advanced training modes and challenges

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Chess

One-time1
  • Full course$3.99
7 purchases

Chess ⁺

One-time7
  • 10 Gem Pack$0.99
  • Starter Pack$1.99
  • 50 Gem Pack$4.99
Show 4 more
  • 100 Gem Pack$9.99
  • 250 Gem Pack$19.99
  • 500 Gem Pack$36.99
  • 1000 Gem Pack$69.99

Questions

Is Chess free?
Chess is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Chess ⁺ free?
Chess ⁺ is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Chess or Chess ⁺?
Chess ⁺ is rated higher. Chess averages 4.5 out of 5 from 11 ratings, while Chess ⁺ averages 4.7 from 2.9K ratings.
Do Chess or Chess ⁺ have ads?
Neither Chess nor Chess ⁺ shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Chess or Chess ⁺?
Chess ships an update every 6 weeks, and Chess ⁺ every 2 months. Most recently, Chess was updated on September 10, 2026 and Chess ⁺ on September 23, 2026.

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