Comparison

Chess Problems Lite vs Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)

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

Head to head
About

Chess Problems Lite

Sharpen your chess skills with directmate puzzles. This app offers 10 interactive problems, from easy mate-in-one to challenging mate-in-four moves. It features a revamped chess engine, a timing clock, customizable piece sets and color schemes, and social leaderboards with Facebook integration.

Highlights
  • Directmate chess puzzles
  • Mate in 1 to 4+ moves
  • Revamped chess engine
  • Timing clock for puzzles
  • Customizable piece sets and color schemes
  • Leaderboards and Facebook integration
Features
Read full description

A lite version of the Ultimate mate in 1 to 4+ chess puzzle apps! Sharpen your chess skills! Beginners and experienced players will enjoy solving these chess problems! This app has 10 interactive chess problems ranging from easy mate in one move problems to very challenging mate in four moves. The object is to finish each game by forcing a checkmate in a given number of moves. In the full versions of this app there are a much larger number of classical puzzles collected from a variety of sources. These puzzles are fun to play and can be enjoyed at your leisure on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Chess problems are especially useful for learning to play chess or anyone wanting to improve their skills. New features added include: ------------------------------ - Completely revamped chess engine that is much stronger - Timing clock is displayed while you are working on each puzzle. How long you take to solve a puzzle is stored. - New options: more chess piece sets (total of 7) and more colors schemes (total of 7) including wood and marble. (Improved the options menu as well) - Social Gaming: Leaderboards to compare the number of puzzles you have solved with your friends and other players. Facebook integration - including the ability to post your progress and ask your friends for help on a puzzle. - Universal app - works on iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad - high resolution graphics all around (where supported). For even more chess puzzle challenges check out these apps: - Mate in 1 Puzzles - Mate in 2 Puzzles - Mate in 3 Puzzles - Mate in 4+ Puzzles

About

Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)

Master chess tactics with over 2500 exercises focused on delivering checkmate in one move. This app provides structured lessons, hints, and explanations to improve your tactical understanding and speed, suitable for beginners to intermediate players.

Highlights
  • 2500+ mating exercises
  • Focus on mate in one move
  • Hints and explanations
  • Speed training tool
  • Interactive lessons
  • Rating change monitoring
  • Offline functionality
Features
Read full description

If you are a beginner, you should practice much to mate in one move. This course provides excellent material for this training. The big number of exercises (2500) covers different methods of mating. Many of them is an excellent tool for speed training even for stronger players. This is a rare course that is intended even for players with USCF rating of 600. Even if you only study and solve 10% of the exercises, you will learn a huge number of mating patterns and probably never miss a mate in one again! 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. Few-figured positions 1.1. Rook checkmates 1.2. Queen checkmates 1.3. Bishop checkmates 1.4. Knight checkmates 1.5. Pawn checkmates 1.6. Any piece checkmates 2. Many-figured positions 2.1. Rook checkmates 2.2. Queen checkmates 2.3. Bishop checkmates 2.4. Knight checkmates 2.5. Pawn checkmates 2.6. Any piece checkmates 3. Complicated positions 3.1. Checkmates with help of the King 3.2. Underpromotions 3.3. Mate with pawn promotion 3.4. Discovered check 3.5. Double check 4. Any piece checkmates 4.1. Volume 1 4.2. Volume 2 4.3. Volume 3 4.4. Volume 4 4.5. Volume 5 4.6. Volume 6 4.7. Volume 7 4.8. Volume 8 4.9. Volume 9 4.10. Volume 10 4.11. Volume 11 4.12. Volume 12 4.13. Volume 13 4.14. Volume 14 4.15. Volume 15 4.16. Volume 16 4.17. Volume 17 4.18. Volume 18 4.19. Volume 19 4.20. Volume 20 4.21. Volume 21 4.22. Volume 22 4.23. Volume 23

Screenshots

Chess Problems Lite4 screens
Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) at 4.8 against Chess Problems Lite's 4.3. Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) also leads on ratings volume (178 vs 8) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 7 months). Chess Problems Lite's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On price, ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Chess Problems Lite asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) has 178 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 83% of Chess Problems Lite's written reviews are positive against 92% of Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)'s.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chess Problems Lite ships an update every 7 months, Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Chess Problems Lite versus Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles): the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChess Problems LiteMate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (8 ratings)4.8 (178 ratings) — better
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews92.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings8178 — better
Update frequencyEvery 7 monthsEvery 2 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS13.08.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB42 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperGano Technologies LLCChess King

Customer experience

Chess Problems Lite

All ratings8 ratings
Positive87.5%
Neutral12.5%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews24 reviews
Positive83.3%
Neutral8.3%
Negative8.3%

Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)

All ratings178 ratings
Positive97.2%
Neutral0.6%
Negative2.2%
Written reviews39 reviews
Positive92.3%
Neutral5.1%
Negative2.6%

In-app purchases

None

Chess Problems Lite

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)

One-time1
  • Full course$1.99

Questions

Is Chess Problems Lite free?
Chess Problems Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) free?
Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Chess Problems Lite or Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)?
Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) is rated higher. Chess Problems Lite averages 4.3 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) averages 4.8 from 178 ratings.
Do Chess Problems Lite or Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) have ads?
Neither Chess Problems Lite nor Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Chess Problems Lite or Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles)?
Chess Problems Lite ships an update every 7 months, and Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) every 2 months. Most recently, Chess Problems Lite was updated on September 21, 2026 and Mate in 1 move (Chess Puzzles) on September 23, 2026.

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