Comparison

Chess vs Lotus Chess

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • Interactive e-book format
  • Teaches rules and terminology
  • Covers essential strategies
  • Interactive diagram feature
  • Practice legal moves
Features
Read full description

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.

About

Lotus Chess

Master chess openings, tactics, and endgames with a personalized training system. Analyze your games, identify weaknesses, and learn winning strategies against human opponents. Improve your chess skills from beginner to competitive levels.

Highlights
  • Personalized opening courses from your games
  • Import games from Chess.com/Lichess
  • Master endgames with step-by-step lessons
  • 100,000+ chess puzzles
  • Offline access to lessons
  • In-depth game analysis
Features
Read full description

Lotus Chess is a powerful chess training app designed to help you improve faster than any other chess learning app. It provides a complete system for mastering openings, tactics, and endgames. Join more than 250.000 chess learners across the world — from beginners starting with the fundamentals to competitive players with 2300 Elo. Unlike most apps — which focus on engine-perfect theory — Lotus Chess teaches attacking chess that helps you win against human opponents. --- Opening Training Built for Real Games Lotus Chess analyzes up to 3000 of your online games, identifies your weaknesses, and creates a personalized, tailored course to make your openings bulletproof. Lotus Chess teaches you crushing lines that exploit common mistakes, instead of showing you boring theoretical lines that rarely happen in actual games. To do this, Lotus Chess’ AI has analyzed 100.000.000+ games to identify the lines that give you the highest win probability against real players. Opening Features • Personalized opening courses generated from your own games • Import games from Chess.com or Lichess for automatic analysis • Identify your most common opening mistakes • Train openings repeatedly until they become natural • Learn from a library of 80+ openings --- Master the Endgame Endgames decide a huge number of chess games, yet they are often the most neglected part of training. Lotus Chess includes a complete endgame course designed to teach practical endgame technique step-by-step. Endgame Training Includes • 60+ detailed lessons • Fundamental checkmates (queen, rook, etc.) • Advanced techniques like building the bridge • 180+ training positions to practice against a human-like engine Instead of only studying theory, you get to play and convert winning positions to reinforce what you’ve learned. --- Additional Features • All Endgame and Opening Lessons work offline (Great for the airplane and your commute) • 100,000+ chess puzzles • In-depth analysis of your online games • Personalized training recommendations --- Built by Chess Players Lotus Chess was created by two brothers who started playing chess at age four. After building a math learning app with over 6 million downloads, they set out to create the ultimate chess learning platform. The result is Lotus Chess: a modern chess training system that combines opening preparation, endgame mastery, and personalized analysis — which is now being used by over 250.000 learners across the world. Privacy Policy & Terms of Use: https://www.lotus-chess.com/privacy-policy

Screenshots

Chess4 screens
Lotus Chess4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Chess at none against Lotus Chess's 4. Lotus Chess's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 9 months) and ratings volume (1.1K vs 202). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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. Lotus Chess sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $7.99 per month. Chess asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Chess against 4.8 for Lotus Chess. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Lotus Chess has 1.1K ratings behind it against 202, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 92% of Chess's written reviews are positive against 86% of Lotus Chess's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chess ships an update every 9 months, Lotus Chess weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Chess versus Lotus Chess: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChessLotus Chess
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (202 ratings)4.8 (1.1K ratings) — better
Positive reviews92.4% of reviews — better86.2% of reviews
Number of ratings2021.1K — better
Update frequencyEvery 9 monthsWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS26.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size5 MB245 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTom KerriganLotus Chess UG

Customer experience

Chess

All ratings200 ratings
Positive96.5%
Neutral0.5%
Negative3.0%
Written reviews539 reviews
Positive92.4%
Neutral5.2%
Negative2.4%

Lotus Chess

All ratings1,086 ratings
Positive96.6%
Neutral1.7%
Negative1.7%
Written reviews261 reviews
Positive86.2%
Neutral7.7%
Negative6.1%

Bugs and requests

Chess

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Lotus Chess

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Login screen freezes
  • Incompatible with older devices

Requested features

4 requests
  • Library to explain the WHY behind the moves
  • Link to an online library
  • Ability to remove pre-selected openings
  • Review of daily correspondence games

In-app purchases

None

Chess

No in-app purchases

4 purchases

Lotus Chess

Subscriptions4
  • Pro Subscription - 1 Month7 Days trial$7.991 Month
  • Pro Subscription - 1 Month7 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • Pro Subscription - 1 Year7 Days trial$49.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Pro Subscription - 1 Year7 Days trial$69.991 Year

Questions

Is Chess free?
Chess is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Lotus Chess free?
Lotus Chess is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Chess or Lotus Chess?
Lotus Chess is rated higher. Chess averages 4.7 out of 5 from 202 ratings, while Lotus Chess averages 4.8 from 1.1K ratings.
Do Chess or Lotus Chess have ads?
Neither Chess nor Lotus Chess shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Chess or Lotus Chess?
Chess ships an update every 9 months, and Lotus Chess weekly. Most recently, Chess was updated on October 23, 2026 and Lotus Chess on October 25, 2026.

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