Comparison

Chessbook vs Studiolo

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Chessbook

Build a personalized chess opening repertoire with spaced repetition training. Identify weaknesses, learn optimal moves based on master game data, and avoid obscure lines. Review your online games for mistakes and master middlegame plans.

Highlights
  • Custom opening repertoire creation
  • Spaced repetition training
  • Automatic gap identification
  • Avoid obscure moves
  • Handle transpositions
  • Review online game mistakes
  • Learn middlegame plans
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Chessbook is the fastest way to build a bulletproof opening repertoire. Key features: • Create a custom repertoire • Train with spaced repetition • Find gaps automatically • Avoid obscure moves • Handle transpositions • Find mistakes in your online games • Fast & modern interface “A fun and simple way to build an opening repertoire based on probabilities of most likely lines. You will actually learn the moves that will happen on the board!” —Grandmaster Eugene Perelshteyn FIND THE GAPS IN YOUR REPERTOIRE BEFORE YOUR OPPONENTS DO Chessbook calculates your coverage per opening so you always know what to work on. PICK THE BEST MOVES TO MAXIMIZE YOUR WIN-RATE Weigh up your options by looking at stats from master games, engine evaluation and results at your level. ONLY SPEND TIME ON THE MOVES YOU'LL ACTUALLY SEE Most books and courses are written by masters for masters. Chessbook lets you avoid obscure grandmaster lines and focus your effort on the moves that are common at your level. TARGETED PRACTICE MEANS YOU'LL NEVER FORGET A MOVE Chessbook uses spaced repetition, a scientifically proven technique to memorize openings quickly and thoroughly. COLLECT ALL YOUR OPENINGS IN ONE PLACE Nobody gets their whole repertoire from a single course or book. Chessbook lets you combine openings from multiple sources to create a custom repertoire just for you. REVIEW YOUR ONLINE GAMES FOR OPENING MISTAKES Get instant feedback on how well you're sticking to your repertoire. Chessbook supports both Lichess and Chess.com LEARN MIDDLEGAME PLANS FOR ANY OPENING See how top players handle the positions that result from the openings you play. CHESSBOOK PRO Chessbook Pro gives you the ability to add unlimited moves to your repertoire! Free users can add 400 moves. Terms of Use: https://chessbook.com/terms-and-conditions.html Privacy Policy: https://chessbook.com/privacy-policy.html

About

Studiolo

Features
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A course of study with no commencement. Fifteen shelves, seventy-six books, and one capstone for each shelf that a professor reads and grades against a fixed rubric. There is no schedule, no page target and no term. You mark a book when you finish it, and a shelf closes when its books are marked. It began over the course of about a year as one reader's private reading program — an MBA in everything but the tuition. What started as a curriculum turned into a habit, and more shelves are added as subjects become interesting. WHAT A STUDIOLO IS A small private study — one room, big enough for one person and a chair. The famous ones belonged to Federico da Montefeltro around 1476, and their walls were covered floor to ceiling in wood inlay: cupboards standing half open with books, an hourglass, an armillary sphere inside them. None of it real. All of it flat. A portrait of a mind, made permanent by the person who used it. Your wall works the same way. Every book you finish inlays one more object into it. That is the whole reward. There is no progress bar, because a bar measures what is left, and the argument of this program is that nothing is left. THE SHELVES Execution. Strategy. Innovation. New ventures. Consulting. Leadership. Communication. Financial fluency. Analytical thinking. Design. Sales. Recruiting. Generative AI. Coaching. Mergers and acquisitions. Each shelf holds three to eight books chosen because they disagree with each other. Every book arrives with an argument for why it is there, what it contributes, and one question you answer when you finish it — a question you could not answer from the jacket copy. THE PROFESSOR Write the capstone and it is read against that shelf's grading instrument: a document you never see, holding the concept inventory for every book on the shelf and the anchored standard for that module. Four dimensions are marked — rigor, clarity, integration, insight. The evaluator never proposes an overall grade. The aggregate is arithmetic from a fixed weighting, computed outside the evaluation, so two people who write the same capstone receive the same result. A second reader then checks every letter against the instrument's own written anchors and may move one. The feedback names something you did that a weaker writer would not have, states the central weakness in one sentence, and shows the connection that was available and missed — using the books you have just read. NOT A CREDENTIAL Nothing here is accredited and nothing transfers. The certificate reads Certificate of Continuous Study, because that is what it is. If you need a qualification, this is the wrong thing. WHAT IT COSTS The reading is free, all of it, permanently. Grading a capstone runs a large language model twice over a long grading instrument and costs real money, so credits are sold at roughly what that costs. A credit is spent only when a grade is saved — a run that fails costs nothing. BUILD YOUR OWN When the fifteen run out, commission a sixteenth. Studiolo writes the specification a shelf has to meet — books that genuinely argue with each other, an order that means something, a question per book, and the grading instrument that makes it markable — and you bring back the shelf. Sync across iPhone, iPad and Mac. No analytics, no tracking, no advertising.

Screenshots

Chessbook4 screens
Studiolo4 screens

Verdict

The call

Chessbook and Studiolo are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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. Chessbook sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $7.99 per month and Studiolo sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Chessbook versus Studiolo: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChessbookStudiolo
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (2.2K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews82.6% of reviews—
Number of ratings2.2K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size121 MB37 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperChessbookDavid Hamm

Bugs and requests

Chessbook

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • App not working on iPad
  • Login issues on iPhone
  • Inability to delete move sequences

Requested features

4 requests
  • Pause after completing move sequences
  • Clearer instructions for beginners
  • Customizable notification settings
  • Option to input and practice specific positions

Studiolo

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Chessbook

Subscriptions2
  • Chessbook Pro - Monthly$7.991 Month
  • Chessbook Pro - Annual$79.991 Year
2 purchases

Studiolo

One-time2
  • 5 Gradings$1.99
  • 15 Gradings$5.99

Questions

Is Chessbook free?
Chessbook is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Studiolo free?
Studiolo is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Chessbook or Studiolo have ads?
Neither Chessbook nor Studiolo shows ads.

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