Comparison

Chess Log vs ChessView

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

Head to head
About

Chess Log

Catalog, organize, and analyze your chess games with a clean interface. Save and annotate moves, explore openings, and get move suggestions to improve your play. Elevate your chess strategy with powerful analytical tools.

Highlights
  • Game catalog and organization
  • Detailed move annotation
  • Opening explorer
  • Move suggestions
  • PGN editor
Read full description

The ultimate chess game tracker, analyzer, and PGN editor. Easily catalog, organize, and analyze your chess games with a clean, intuitive interface. Save every game, tag key moments and revisit your moves to track improvement. Whether studying openings, mastering endgames or refining tactics, Chess Log provides powerful tools to elevate your game. Key features: - Game Catalog: Store and organize all your games in one place. - Detailed Annotation: Tag and annotate moves. - Opening Explorer: Compare your moves to peers and masters alike. - Move Suggestions: See top moves and find out where you or your opponent went wrong.

About

ChessView

Scan chess positions from photos, books, or screenshots and instantly play them out on a digital board. Analyze PGN files, import your online games, and explore classic matches. Offers optional AI commentary for deeper insights.

Highlights
  • Scan positions from photos/screenshots
  • Import PGN and FEN files
  • Replay and branch off game moves
  • Full move validation
  • Import Chess.com games
  • Built-in classic games
  • Optional AI commentary
Features
Read full description

See a chess position anywhere — in a book, on another screen, on the table in front of you — and have it on a board you can play with, in seconds. ChessView is a study tool, not another place to play. Scan a position with the camera or from a screenshot, open a PGN file, or pull in your Chess.com games — then replay them, branch off, and work out what actually happened. Free, offline, no account, no ads, no tracking. SCAN A POSITION FROM A PHOTO Point the camera at a real board, or choose a screenshot from Chess.com, Lichess or a chess book. ChessView reads the position and puts it on your board. Anything it misreads, you fix in the position editor — then start playing it out. PLAY IT OUT ON A REAL BOARD Full move validation: legal moves, en passant, castling, promotion. Drag the pieces, step back and forth through the whole game, flip the board, and branch off wherever you want to see what would have happened. OPEN PGN AND FEN FROM ANYWHERE PGN files from Files, Mail, Messages or any app that can share them. Paste a FEN string and it loads. Export any position or game as PGN, FEN or a PNG image, and share it in one tap. YOUR CHESS.COM GAMES, OFFLINE Type your username, pick a month, and your games are in the library — ready to replay any time, with or without a connection. STUDY THE CLASSICS Famous games come built in — Byrne–Fischer, Morphy, Short–Timman, Lasker–Thomas — so there is always a position worth looking at. SEE THE EVALUATION Evaluations and main lines come from the Lichess cloud database: free, fast, no account needed. For positions the database doesn't know, ChessView offers a sensible continuation of its own. OPTIONAL: COMMENTARY IN PLAIN WORDS Add your own OpenAI API key and ChessView will explain a position or a whole game in sentences — the plan, the key ideas, the moment it turned. Entirely optional: everything above works without it. Your key is stored in the iOS Keychain, used only from your device, and never sent to us. PRIVACY, ACTUALLY No account. No ads. No analytics. No tracking. Your games and your settings stay on your iPhone and iPad. WHY I BUILT IT Getting a chess position onto my phone used to be absurdly hard. A diagram in a book, a screenshot from a game, a FEN string someone sent me — none of it could just be opened and played through on an iPhone. PGN files were worse. So I built the app I wanted: open anything, put it on a real board, move the pieces. — Pavel, solo developer Designed for iPhone and iPad.

Screenshots

Chess Log4 screens
ChessView4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: ChessView at 5.0 against Chess Log's 4.0. ChessView also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 6 weeks). Chess Log's advantage is iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

ChessView holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chess Log ships an update every 6 weeks, ChessView every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on July 6, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Chess Log versus ChessView: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChess LogChessView
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings11
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size198 MB21 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLuis De ZutterPavel Gnatyuk

Customer experience

Chess Log

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

ChessView

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Chess Log

No in-app purchases

None

ChessView

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Chess Log free?
Chess Log is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is ChessView free?
ChessView is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Chess Log or ChessView?
ChessView is rated higher. Chess Log averages 4.0 out of 5 from 1 ratings, while ChessView averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Chess Log or ChessView have ads?
Neither Chess Log nor ChessView shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Chess Log or ChessView?
Chess Log ships an update every 6 weeks, and ChessView every 2 weeks. Most recently, Chess Log was updated on July 6, 2026 and ChessView on September 29, 2026.

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