Comparison

Chess Problems Lite vs Mate in 3

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 3

Enhance your chess skills with over 2500 exercises focused on mating in 3 or 4 moves. This app provides a structured learning experience with hints, explanations, and refutations to help you master tactical combinations and improve your calculation abilities.

Highlights
  • Over 2500 mating exercises
  • Mating in 3 or 4 moves
  • Hints and explanations
  • Refutation of mistakes
  • Exercises from practical games
  • Difficulty levels
  • Rating (ELO) tracking
Features
Read full description

This course includes more than 2500 exercises for mating in 3 or 4 moves. You will have to use your fantasy and precise calculation in order to find a correct way of attacking the king. After going through this course you are sure to improve your skills and abilities considerably and will not miss an opportunity to employ a nice little combination in a practical game of your own. The program is intended both for club players and intermediate players. 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 • 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 2. King+queen 3. King+rook 4. King+bishop 5. King+knight 6. King+pawn 7. Queen 8. Queen+rook 9. Queen+bishop 10. Queen+knight 11. Queen+pawn 12. Rook 13. Rook+bishop 14. Rook+knight 15. Rook+pawn 16. Bishop 17. Bishop+knight 18. Bishop+pawn 19. Knight 20. Knight+pawn 21. Pawn

Screenshots

Chess Problems Lite4 screens
Mate in 34 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Mate in 3 at 4.8 against Chess Problems Lite's 4.3. Mate in 3 also leads on ratings volume (261 vs 8) and iOS requirement (8.0 vs 13.0). Chess Problems Lite's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). 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 3 sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Chess Problems Lite asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Mate in 3 holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Mate in 3 has 261 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 89% of Mate in 3's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chess Problems Lite ships an update every 7 months, Mate in 3 every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Chess Problems Lite versus Mate in 3: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChess Problems LiteMate in 3
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (8 ratings)4.8 (261 ratings) — better
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews89.1% of reviews — better
Number of ratings8261 — 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 MB43 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 3

All ratings262 ratings
Positive96.2%
Neutral2.3%
Negative1.5%
Written reviews46 reviews
Positive89.1%
Neutral6.5%
Negative4.3%

Bugs and requests

Chess Problems Lite

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Mate in 3

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Discrepancies in puzzle solutions/move counts
  • App copies clipboard contents
  • Occasional lags

Requested features

3 requests
  • More variety in puzzles
  • Address clipboard copying concerns
  • Provide a privacy policy

In-app purchases

None

Chess Problems Lite

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Mate in 3

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 3 free?
Mate in 3 is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Chess Problems Lite or Mate in 3?
Mate in 3 is rated higher. Chess Problems Lite averages 4.3 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while Mate in 3 averages 4.8 from 261 ratings.
Do Chess Problems Lite or Mate in 3 have ads?
Neither Chess Problems Lite nor Mate in 3 shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Chess Problems Lite or Mate in 3?
Chess Problems Lite ships an update every 7 months, and Mate in 3 every 4 months. Most recently, Chess Problems Lite was updated on October 23, 2026 and Mate in 3 on October 24, 2026.

Other comparisons