Chess Tiger Lite vs OpeningTree
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Chess Tiger Lite
Master chess with interactive lessons and guided gameplay. Learn rules, practice moves with Grandmaster suggestions, and analyze your games to improve. Enjoy an ad-free, offline experience suitable for all skill levels.
- Introductory chess lessons
- Grandmaster move suggestions
- Game analysis and improvement tips
- Ad-free and offline play
- Customizable themes and pieces
- Progressive difficulty levels
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Beginner or advanced, improve your chess skills, without ever being disturbed by ads. Do you want to master the most prestigious, the classiest game ever, while having fun? It's EASY! For starters, there are no ads to distract you. There's no account to create, and you don't even need to be connected to the Internet. So, how does it work? If you are a beginner, let yourself be guided by the introductory lessons included. The lessons are SHORT and EASY. Right from the start, you begin playing by moving pieces, and you learn the rules of the game while having fun. The first 40 lessons are free. Once you know the rules, you start playing real games! The coach shows you the moves a Grandmaster would pick. Not just one move, but THE 4 BEST MOVES. Sounds too simple? But think about it... How did you learn to speak as a child? Did you take grammar and spelling lessons? Of course not. You listened to the adults talk and then you went for it! Because that's how you learn! This app allows you to do just that, AND IT WORKS! From the very first games, you start learning effortlessly. You immediately enjoy playing, and after a while you notice that the right moves come to mind naturally, as if they were obvious. Gradually, you deactivate the suggestions and play by yourself. At the end of each game, the coach shows you the good and bad moves you've made. You can better understand what happened, and you can even try out other moves to improve. If this sounds unbelievable, you should read the user reviews for our app. It has one of the highest satisfaction ratings on the App Store, in all countries. FOR BEGINNERS, THIS APP... • contains introductory chess lessons that are suitable even for children. The first 40 are free. • shows you all the possible moves of a piece when you touch it. • explains why certain moves are forbidden. • can suggest 4 to 6 excellent moves at any one time. The green button lets you show or hide these suggestions. • can tell you when you can mate your opponent, so you can look for the winning move by yourself. • can warn you when your opponent is about to play a dangerous move. • provides 21 progressive levels ranging from absolute beginner (100 Elo) to club player (1300 Elo). • knows and applies perfectly all the official rules of chess. • is a very competent teacher of a very high level. • analyzes your games and shows you how to improve. FOR EXPERTS: • Both USCF and FIDE rating scales are supported. • You can set up any position. • The chess engine displays its thinking, up to 20 moves ahead. OTHER FEATURES INCLUDE: • The coach can comment on the game as you play (optional). • When the game is over, the coach can analyze it and show you how to improve. • 19 beautiful visual themes are included, which you can customize. • 10 styles of chess pieces are available (wood, ebony & ivory, metal, glass, …). • You can choose from 20 chessboard styles (marble, blue marble, wood, metal, stone, …). • A collection of over 10,000 famous games by the greatest players of all time is included. For example, the entire career of Magnus Carlsen, since 2001, is available. • «Reload last game» allows you to return to the most recent game. • 4 playing styles are included, from «cautious» to «suicidal», which you can combine with all available levels. • Includes an opening book of more than one million moves. • Many customization options are available (graphics, sounds, engine output…). • ...and much more... privacy policy: http://www.chesstiger.com/iphone/About_privacy_en.html terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
OpeningTree
Explore chess openings with an extensive opening book and engine analysis. Analyze your games, create custom lines, and study moves from high-rated players. Accessible for visually impaired users.
- Extensive opening book
- Crafty engine analysis
- Load and analyze PGN games
- Create custom move lines
- Accessible for visually impaired
- Mark moves with colors
- Save board to PGN
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OpeningTree is a chess openings book based on high rated over the board games that lets one explore the tree of openings and engine analysis is available. Chess game files can be shared with the app to check against the book or to just view. Users can make their own side line moves and back up to return to main line. Also includes ten classic game collections and users can import their own games into the app. Game list are also searchable by tags. The updated opening book is compiled from 640,000 high rated games from recent years with both players rated 2300 and over. Just touch moves in the list or make moves on the board to see what the response is. The numbers next to moves indicate how many games resulted in wins-draws-losses. The idea comes from computer opening books as if we can open up the book and see what those moves are that people play in response to opening positions. Users do not pick an opening to study but start with the full tree. The analyze button on bottom right of board is to flip between viewing the openings move table or seeing Crafty engine analysis. +1.00 score means white is ahead a pawn. -1.00 score means black is ahead a pawn. There is a move now button to make the engine play the current best move if the users wants to try playing a position out against the engine. OpeningTree's board is accessible to the blind and visually impaired using Voice Over. With Voice Over enabled in device settings, tap on a square for info, double tap to select. Or choose from three move methods. When going forward in a loaded PGN game, moves will be announced on each tap of the forward button. Moves can be marked with colors(red, green, yellow) and colorizing a move at the end of a line will extend the line i.e. add move so it shows later. There is also an option to make a note on a position using the control bar. In the Actions menu if the user has imported a chess games file to the App, for example by opening a PGN file with OpeningTree from a mail attachment or download(long touch on the attachment/download for this option), a game from a PGN file can be loaded and checked against the book. If a user makes a new move, back up to the main line to return to the game. To ensure speed, it will only read/load a max of 5000 games. With bigger files users will only see first 5000 games. There is a Save Board to PGN option on the Actions menu. It saves the current moves to openings-user-games.pgn, a file OpeningTree will create on first save. Games are saved with opening name as white and black name to spot the lines in each game. This allows the users to export data out of the App such as favorite lines with the mail games option when looking at a game list. The App comes with six PGN game files that can be optionally installed when no PGN files have yet been opened by the App or the user has deleted their PGN files previously opened and likewise has none to access. If this is the case, this option shows when going to Actions -> load PGN. The files contain a mix of famous classical games, collections of former world champions Gary Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen's games and more recent games from two top ranked international tournaments. PGN stands for portable game notation. It's a file extension that can be used with text files that contain chess games in the PGN format. PGN files can be read by apps to display the games in them. If a game is loaded in the App one can then go to 'Actions -> show game data' to view the raw PGN text.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: OpeningTree at none against Chess Tiger Lite's 7. OpeningTree also leads on price ($0.99 vs $4.99). Chess Tiger Lite's advantage is rating (4.8 vs 4.4) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months). On review sentiment, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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
Chess Tiger Lite costs $4.99 and OpeningTree $0.99 up front. Chess Tiger Lite sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $0.49 per 7 days. OpeningTree asks for nothing beyond the download.
Chess Tiger Lite holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chess Tiger Lite has 349 ratings behind it against 31, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 91% of Chess Tiger Lite's written reviews are positive against 83% of OpeningTree's.
Chess Tiger Lite ships an update every 2 weeks, OpeningTree every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Chess Tiger Lite | OpeningTree |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | $0.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.8 (349 ratings) — better | 4.4 (31 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 90.9% of reviews — better | 83.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 349 — better | 31 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 44 MB | 52 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Christophe Théron | Michael Adams |
Customer experience
Chess Tiger Lite
OpeningTree
Bugs and requests
Chess Tiger Lite
Reported bugs
2 issues- Occasional crashes or freezes
- Issues with switching between player colors
Requested features
3 requests- Add more detailed tutorials and coaching options
- Improve the explanation of suggested moves
- Introduce more advanced difficulty levels for experienced players
OpeningTree
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Chess Tiger Lite
- PRO, 1 week$0.497 Days
- PRO, 1 month$0.991 Month
- PRO, 3 months$1.993 Months
- PRO, for life (SALE!)$4.99
- Learn chess$4.99
- PRO, for life (regular price)$8.99
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- PRO FOR LIFE - TODAY ONLY$9.99
OpeningTree
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Chess Tiger Lite free?
Is OpeningTree free?
Which has better reviews, Chess Tiger Lite or OpeningTree?
Do Chess Tiger Lite or OpeningTree have ads?
Which is updated more often, Chess Tiger Lite or OpeningTree?
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