Next Chess Move vs OpeningTree
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Next Chess Move
This application provides a powerful chess move calculator utilizing advanced engines like Stockfish 17.1 directly on your device. It also offers free access to numerous other engines running on remote hardware, with an optional upgrade for enhanced calculation strength and access to powerful servers and GPUs.
- On-device Stockfish 17.1
- Free remote engine access
- Large selection of chess engines
- Optional Pro upgrade
- Access to powerful cloud hardware
- GPU acceleration for LcZero
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NCM is a powerful chess calculator that runs Stockfish 19 directly on your device. The app also includes free access to a growing list of engines running on NCM's remote single core CPU hardware: • Stockfish latest official releases and development builds • Lc0 (all official networks and several contrib networks) • Akimbo • Alexandria • Altair • Arasan • Astra • asmFish • Avalanche • Berserk • Black Marlin • Booot • Caissa • Cinder • Cfish • Clover • Coda • Combusken • CorChess • Counter • Defenchess • Demolito • Devre • Ethereal • Fire • Frozenight • GNU Chess • Halogen • Hobbes • Horsie • Igel • Integral • Koivisto • Laser • Lc0 • Mantissa • Marvin • Minic • Motor • Nalwald • Nemorino • Obsidian • OpenTal • Patricia • Pawn • Pawnocchio • Peacekeeper • PlentyChess • Quanticade • Raphael • Reckless • Rice • RubiChess • Seer • ShashChess • Smallbrain • Starzix • Stash • Stockfish • Stormphrax • Sunfish • Tarnished • Titan • Triumviratus • Tucano • Vajolet2 • Velvet • Viridithas • Wasp • Weiss • Winter • Xiphos • Zahak The optional NCM Pro in-app purchase provides one year access to powerful hardware and features that significantly enhance the strength of calculations: • Ryzen 7950X 16 CPU-core servers • RTX 2080 GPUs for LcZero • 6-man syzygy tablebases on SSD drives
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 Next Chess Move's 1. OpeningTree also leads on price ($0.99 vs $2.99) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.0). Next Chess Move's advantage is chart position (#88 vs unranked) and ratings volume (129 vs 31). On rating, 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
Next Chess Move costs $2.99 and OpeningTree $0.99 up front. Next Chess Move sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. OpeningTree asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Next Chess Move against 4.4 for OpeningTree. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 129 and 31 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 76% of Next Chess Move's written reviews are positive against 83% of OpeningTree's.
Next Chess Move ships an update monthly, OpeningTree every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Next Chess Move | OpeningTree |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | $0.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.5 (129 ratings) — better | 4.4 (31 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 76.3% of reviews | 83.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 129 — better | 31 |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #88 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 143 MB | 52 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Next Chess Move LLC | Michael Adams |
Customer experience
Next Chess Move
OpeningTree
Bugs and requests
Next Chess Move
Reported bugs
18 issues- Critical bugs that break the game (e.g., same color pieces moving consecutively)
- App doesn't turn on
- Update has challenges
- Cannot play anything
- LC0 version 0.30 with Networks Family T81 causes 'engine disconnected' error
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- App is pretty buggy
- App decides to delete a piece randomly
- Subscription is gone after payment
- No option to restore purchase
- Every move suggested is a blunder
- Error response most of the time
- App crushes when copying or pasting PGN
- Illegal move issues with PGN/FEN
- Castling not handled correctly in PGN
- Algorithm inconsistency (doesn't play the same move for the exact same play)
- Login doesn't work for extra servers
- UI could be better
- Cannot find an option to delete saved games
Requested features
34 requests- Fix critical bugs
- Update UI
- Release a proper update
- Maintain the app properly
- Update to current stockfish 17
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- Add self-play mode with different engines
- Add Komodo latest version
- Fix LC0 issues with T81 network family
- Show a few candidate options
- Add feature to use screenshot/photo of board
- Add arrow or directional lines for best move
- Make it more didactic
- Add premium features for paid users
- Add option to play engine vs engine
- Add some themes
- Add analysis arrows
- Copy full PGN when playing engine vs engine
- Add database for openings for free
- Add iPad version
- Allow landscape format on iPad
- Increase analysis time beyond 30 seconds
- Add option to switch turns after calculating a move
- Improve ergonomics
- Name boards and show names
- Add instructions on how to use
- Option to delete saved games
- Improve UI
- Handle illegal moves and castling correctly in PGN/FEN
- Allow castling
- Add feedback and suggestions
- Cut and paste FEN
- Automatic play of calculated move
- Print positions after moves or games
- Flip board only for current board
OpeningTree
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Next Chess Move
- NCM Pro$18.99
OpeningTree
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Next Chess Move free?
Is OpeningTree free?
Which has better reviews, Next Chess Move or OpeningTree?
Do Next Chess Move or OpeningTree have ads?
Which is updated more often, Next Chess Move or OpeningTree?
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