Comparison

Chess Problems Lite vs Mate in 2 (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 2 (Chess Puzzles)

Master chess tactics with this app, offering over 19,000 exercises from master games. It provides interactive lessons, hints, and explanations to help you improve your attacking and defensive skills. Track your progress and learn new combinations to elevate your game.

Highlights
  • 19,000+ chess puzzles
  • Mate in 2 exercises
  • Interactive lessons
  • Hints and explanations
  • Progress tracking (ELO)
  • Offline play
Features
Read full description

The best way to improve your game is to train yourself on your device in solving problems from practical games. If you a beginner but already know how to mate in 1 move, you have to move on and learn how to attack a king and give mate in 2 moves! This course includes 19 000 exercises from masters games. In every exercise you will have to find a best continuation for an attack against the king. All the exercises are taken from practical games and arranged according to the names of pieces and difficulty levels. A great number of exercises makes the course an excellent tool for quick training both beginners and club players. 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. King + queen 1.1. Level 1 1.2. Level 2 1.3. Level 3 1.4. Level 4 2. King + rook 2.1. Level 1 2.2. Level 2 2.3. Level 3 2.4. Level 4 2.5. Level 5 3. King + bishop 4. King + knight 5. King + pawn 5.1. Volume 1 6. Queen 6.1. Level 1 6.2. Level 2 6.3. Level 3 6.4. Level 4 6.5. Level 5 6.6. Level 6 7. Queen + rook 7.1. Level 1 7.2. Level 2 7.3. Level 3 7.4. Level 4 7.5. Level 5 7.6. Level 6 7.7. Level 7 8. Queen + bishop 8.1. Level 1 8.2. Level 2 8.3. Level 3 8.4. Level 4 8.5. Level 5 8.6. Level 6 8.7. Level 7 9. Queen + knight 9.1. Level 2 9.2. Level 3 9.3. Level 4 9.4. Level 5 9.5. Level 6 9.6. Level 7 9.7. Level 8 9.8. Level 9 10. Queen + pawn 10.1. Level 1 10.2. Level 2 10.3. Level 3 10.4. Level 4 10.5. Level 5 10.6. Level 6 11. Rook 11.1. Level 1 11.2. Level 2 11.3. Level 3 11.4. Level 4 11.5. Level 5 11.6. Level 6 11.7. Level 7 12. Rook + bishop 12.1. Level 2 12.2. Level 3 12.3. Level 4 12.4. Level 5 12.5. Level 6 12.6. Level 7 13. Rook + knight 13.1. Level 2 13.2. Level 3 13.3. Level 4 13.4. Level 5 13.5. Level 6 13.6. Level 7 13.7. Level 8 13.8. Level 9 13.9. Level 10 14. Rook + pawn 14.1. Level 2 14.2. Level 3 14.3. Level 4 14.4. Level 5 14.5. Level 6 15. Bishop 15.1. Level 1 15.2. Level 2 15.3. Level 3 15.4. Level 4 15.5. Level 5 15.6. Level 6 16. Bishop + knight 16.1. Level 2 16.2. Level 4 16.3. Level 5 16.4. Level 6 16.5. Level 7 16.6. Level 8 16.7. Level 9 17. Bishop + pawn 17.1. Level 1 17.2. Level 2 17.3. Level 3 17.4. Level 4 17.5. Level 5 17.6. Level 6 18. Knight 18.1. Level 2 18.2. Level 3 18.3. Level 4 18.4. Level 5 18.5. Level 6 18.6. Level 7 18.7. Level 8 19. Knight + pawn 19.1. Level 2 20. Pawn 21. Any piece checkmates

Screenshots

Chess Problems Lite4 screens
Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles)4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Chess Problems Lite at none against Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles)'s 1. Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles)'s advantage is rating (4.7 vs 4.3) and ratings volume (83 vs 8). On price, review sentiment, update cadence 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. Mate in 2 (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 2 (Chess Puzzles) holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles) has 83 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 83% of Chess Problems Lite's written reviews are positive against 81% of Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles)'s, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chess Problems Lite ships an update every 7 months, Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles) every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Chess Problems Lite versus Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles): the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChess Problems LiteMate in 2 (Chess Puzzles)
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (8 ratings)4.7 (83 ratings) — better
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews — better81.0% of reviews
Number of ratings883 — better
Update frequencyEvery 7 monthsEvery 4 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 MB44 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 2 (Chess Puzzles)

All ratings83 ratings
Positive95.2%
Neutral1.2%
Negative3.6%
Written reviews21 reviews
Positive81.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative19.0%

In-app purchases

None

Chess Problems Lite

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles)

One-time1
  • Full course$3.99

Questions

Is Chess Problems Lite free?
Chess Problems Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles) free?
Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles) is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Chess Problems Lite or Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles)?
Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles) is rated higher. Chess Problems Lite averages 4.3 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles) averages 4.7 from 83 ratings.
Do Chess Problems Lite or Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles) have ads?
Neither Chess Problems Lite nor Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles) shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Chess Problems Lite or Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles)?
Chess Problems Lite ships an update every 7 months, and Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles) every 4 months. Most recently, Chess Problems Lite was updated on September 21, 2026 and Mate in 2 (Chess Puzzles) on October 16, 2026.

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