Chess vs Chess Openings Wizard
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Chess
Discover the world of chess with this interactive e-book. Learn the rules, terminology, and essential strategies through engaging content and practice moves with interactive diagrams. Improve your game, whether you're a beginner or looking to refine your skills.
- Interactive e-book format
- Teaches rules and terminology
- Covers essential strategies
- Interactive diagram feature
- Practice legal moves
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Over 600 million people worldwide know how to play chess. Now you can learn how to play too, with Learn Chess! Learn Chess is a short, fun, interactive e-book that teaches you the rules, terminology, essential strategies, and more. Even if you already know the rules, it can help you improve your game. Features: - 118 pages of content - 91 chess diagrams - Interactive diagram feature lets you try out legal moves Learn Chess is made by the developer of tChess Lite and Pro, the popular and critically acclaimed iPhone chess games.
Chess Openings Wizard
This app helps tournament chess players prepare their openings by designing and testing their knowledge of specific lines. It offers powerful editing and training tools, syncing with desktop versions and providing Stockfish analysis for move validation. Prepare openings quickly with tools refined over decades.
- Design and test chess openings
- Full editing and training power
- Syncs with Mac and Windows versions
- Stockfish analysis via PocketGM server
- Pedigree ribbon shows top player game results
- Fast opening preparation tools
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Chess Openings Wizard is where tournament players go to work on their openings. The app is based on the Bookup program that first came out in 1984. The app has full editing and training power like its brethren apps on Macintosh and Windows. Openings can be moved back and forth to the Macintosh, Windows, and Android versions. Chess Openings Wizard does not play chess, nor does it come with a game collection. It is meant for designing openings for White and defenses for Black, and then testing the player's knowledge of the lines by playing mock games. Sample ebooks include an opening guide (thousands of named and categorized opening positions accessible through any move order), an ECO master framework, and the White and Black repertoires of Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and Robert Fischer. It also includes a demo ebook with excerpts from a highly annotated repertoire in the Open Game. Chess Openings Wizard has a dedicated PocketGM server giving you full speed Stockfish analysis. (Internet connection required.) The Pedigree ribbon shows the results of games in each opening position but uses only games between two super GMs. That way you know if the move is trusted by the best players. (And it's important to know if a move has never been played by a super GM when facing another super GM.) This is the same feature found in Chess Openings Wizard Professional for Macintosh and Windows. The short version is: if you are designing an opening with a game database app or with a playing program, you're working too hard. Chess Openings Wizard contains 42 years of refinements, with precisely the tools that a tournament player requires to prepare openings fast.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Chess at Free against Chess Openings Wizard's $6.99. Chess also leads on review sentiment (92% vs 55%) and ratings volume (200 vs 4). Chess Openings Wizard's advantage is update cadence (every 2 months vs every 9 months) and rating (5.0 vs 4.7). On ads, in-app purchases, monetization model and device support 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
Chess is free to download; Chess Openings Wizard costs $6.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Chess Openings Wizard holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chess has 200 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 92% of Chess's written reviews are positive against 55% of Chess Openings Wizard's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Chess ships an update every 9 months, Chess Openings Wizard every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Chess | Chess Openings Wizard |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $6.99 |
| Rating | 4.7 (200 ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 92.4% of reviews — better | 54.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 200 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 9 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 11.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 5 MB | 167 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Tom Kerrigan | Bookup Corp. |
Customer experience
Chess
Chess Openings Wizard
In-app purchases
Chess
No in-app purchases
Chess Openings Wizard
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Chess free?
Is Chess Openings Wizard free?
Which has better reviews, Chess or Chess Openings Wizard?
Do Chess or Chess Openings Wizard have ads?
Which is updated more often, Chess or Chess Openings Wizard?
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