SimpleChess vs Chess
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SimpleChess
Engage in a straightforward and rapid chess experience. Compete globally, customize your board and pieces, and track your ELO ranking. Enhance your skills with tactical training and puzzle battles.
- Online multiplayer chess
- Customizable chessboards and pieces
- Tactical training modules
- Puzzle battles
- ELO ranking tracking
- Chess960 variant
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Play chess online - it's that simple! Simple, practical and fast, SimpleChess makes playing chess as easy as child's play! • It's free! • Compete against opponents from all over the world • Customize your chessboard, with 20 piece types and 40 chessboard designs • 10 different themes (5 dark, 5 light) • Choose your game rating: fast, blitz, bullet, or create the rating of your choice • Track your progress with your ELO ranking • Make progress with our tactical training modules • Challenge other players to a puzzle battle • Play Chess960, a variant of the chess game • Earn XP experience points with every game Become a member and enjoy additional features: • Analyze your games by computer • Find your friends easily • And enjoy full access to our training modules!
Chess
Engage in classic chess with a feature-rich application. Play against AI across ten difficulty levels, challenge friends locally or online, and hone your skills with thousands of puzzles. Customize your experience with various board and piece styles.
- Play against AI or friends
- 10 difficulty levels
- Online and LAN multiplayer
- 38,000+ chess puzzles
- Customizable boards and pieces
- Load/save games (PGN)
- Thousands of classic games
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A well designed chess app with a lot of powerful features. Features: - Play as white or black, against the computer or a friend. - 10 difficulty levels, from novice to grandmaster. - Support online gameplay. - Support LAN game via bluetooth/Wi-Fi. - Include more than 38000 chess puzzles, divided into 13 collections. - Computer hint and unlimited undo for beginners. - Changeable chessboards and piece sets, 2D/3D piece styles. - Load and save games to PGN files. - Autosaving your current game. - Setup position, intelligent validity check. - Randomly go to any point in the current game. - Provide thousands of classic chess games to download, such as grandmaster games, world championship games. - More functions: handicap, view move list, automatic move playback, etc.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: SimpleChess at 4.0 against Chess's 3.1. SimpleChess also leads on ads (none vs shown) and update cadence (every 8 days vs every 21 months). Chess's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 8) and ratings volume (75 vs 8). On price, review sentiment, 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
Both are free to download. SimpleChess sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Chess asks for nothing beyond the download.
SimpleChess holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 3.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chess has 75 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 53% of SimpleChess's written reviews are positive against 49% of Chess's.
SimpleChess ships an update every 8 days, Chess every 21 months. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SimpleChess | Chess |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (8 ratings) — better | 3.1 (75 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 52.7% of reviews — better | 48.6% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 8 | 75 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days — better | Every 21 months |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 5.1.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 82 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Europe Echecs | 况 郭 |
Customer experience
SimpleChess
Chess
In-app purchases
SimpleChess
- Essential Pack (Monthly plan)$2.991 Month
- Premium Pack (Monthly plan)$3.991 Month
- Essential Pack (Annual Plan)$24.991 Year
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- Premium Pack (Annual Plan)$34.991 Year
- 1 month extend$0.99
- 3 months extend$1.99
- 6 month extend$3.99
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- 1 year extend$5.99
Chess
No in-app purchases
