Comparison

zenchess vs MindChess

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

Head to head
About

zenchess

Enhance your chess skills with puzzles, visualization exercises, and tactical training. Practice blindfold chess, analyze your games, and track your progress with personalized coaching. Offers offline play and integration with online chess accounts.

Highlights
  • Blindfold puzzles and visualization
  • Tactical puzzle modes (Classic, Blink, Glyph)
  • Daily challenges with leaderboards
  • Online chess account integration
  • Targeted training games (Coordinates, Memory)
  • Opening study and analysis
  • Personalized coaching and analytics
Features
Read full description

House of all chess training. Train your mind to see the board. zenchess builds chess vision through blindfold puzzles, visualization exercises, and focused practice. PUZZLE MODES • Classic – Solve tactical puzzles from a highly curated list • Blink – See the position for a few seconds, then solve with the board hidden • Glyph – Position shown as notation only (PGN or piece list), solve without seeing the board Each mode has its own rating system. DAILY CHALLENGE One puzzle per day across all three modes. Global leaderboard and 14-day completion tracker. Streak tracking. PLATFORM INTEGRATION Link your favorite online chess account to track ratings directly inside zenchess. Monitor your blitz, rapid, and bullet ratings as they update. View recent games. Set improvement goals based on your real rating and track your progress over time. TRAINING GAMES • Coordinates – Identify squares quickly • Memory – Recall piece positions • Knight vs Queen – Endgame practice with optional blindfold mode • Colors – Square color recognition Leaderboards and statistics for each game. OPENING TRAINER Browse openings by ECO category. Filter by color. Interactive board for studying lines. COACHING Personalized training tasks based on your performance data. Identifies weaknesses and suggests what to work on. Goal tracking with progress visualization. ANALYTICS Rating history, tactical theme breakdown, activity tracking, and detailed performance insights. PROGRESSION Unlock new pieces by ranking higher, levels, achievements, and global leaderboards. ADDITIONAL FEATURES • Offline mode • No ads • Free tier with daily limits • Premium for unlimited access, coaching, and full analytics Terms of Use: https://zenchess.app/terms

About

MindChess

Enhance your chess skills with daily training sessions, tactical puzzles, and bot matches. Analyze your games, build opening repertoires, and track your progress with detailed statistics. This app offers a comprehensive suite of tools for chess improvement.

Highlights
  • Daily chess training drills
  • Themed tactical puzzles
  • Play against AI bots
  • Import and analyze your games
  • Opening repertoire builder
  • Progress tracking and statistics
  • Home and Lock Screen widgets
Features
Read full description

MindChess is a daily chess gym and a study companion. Train board vision, memory and calculation in 60-second sessions, sharpen your tactics, play bots, and take what you learn to your own games. THE GYM • Thirteen short drills: Square Color, Coordinates, Same Color, Same Diagonal, Bishop Captures, Two Knights, Collision, Memory, Mate in 1, Fork Finder, Piece Snapshot, Knight Distance and Opening Flash. • Timed mode (60 seconds, Game Center leaderboards) and Training mode (3 lives). • A daily challenge and a daily streak, with streak freezes and an optional reminder. • 39 achievements: badges at 10, 50 and 100 games of every drill, also in Game Center. TACTICS • Themed puzzles in four modes: Rated, with your own tactics rating; Practice, with free hints; Streak, until your first miss; and Time trial, 3 or 5 minutes with 3 lives. • Pick one of 24 themes or Mix, and review the puzzles you miss. PLAY BOTS • Nine characters with their own style, from beginner to advanced, plus Stockfish at the strength you choose. • Download the free Maia-2 model and some bots play like people at their level. Everything runs on your device. YOUR GAMES • Connect your Lichess or Chess.com account and import your games. • Game databases, PGN import and a viewer with variations, notes and marks. • Analysis: Stockfish 19 on your device, offline, with an evaluation bar and the top 3 lines. With Pro, the game report marks your mistakes, the key moments and your brilliant moves. OPENINGS • Repertoire: play through your lines and the app brings each one back right before you'd forget it. • Learn mode walks you through every new line, with its comments and arrows, before the first question. • Opening explorer: what Masters, Lichess players and you have played from any position, with a linked Lichess account. Save the moves to your repertoire. PROGRESS AND TOOLS • Statistics that tell you what to improve in your training, repertoire and games. • Widgets for your Home Screen and Lock Screen: daily challenge, reviews, streak, personal bests and shortcuts. • Diagram scanner: snap a diagram and get the position ready to edit. Free. • Chess clock: increments, stages and time odds, for games with your phone on the table. • Notation your way: English, Spanish or figurines. The same board, with your look, across the app. ON EVERY SCREEN MindChess works on iPhone, iPad, iPhone Duo and Mac. MINDCHESS PRO Pro unlocks every drill, tactics and bots with no daily limit, Stockfish analysis and the game report, unlimited repertoires, lines and imports, lines from your own games, full statistics, unlimited game databases and clock controls, and 11 Pro piece sets. Free stays useful: the basic drills, 15 tactics puzzles a day, a daily game against the beginner bots, game import, the opening explorer, the scanner and the PGN viewer. MindChess is not an online chess server. It is the place where you train between your games. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

zenchess4 screens
MindChess4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: zenchess at weekly against MindChess's every 3 weeks. zenchess also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. zenchess sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and MindChess sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

zenchess ships an update weekly, MindChess every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 8, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
zenchess versus MindChess: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterzenchessMindChess
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size125 MB150 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerata kaan bulutomar megdadi

Customer experience

zenchess

Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

MindChess

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

In-app purchases

3 purchases

zenchess

Subscriptions3
  • Monthly Subscription$4.991 Month
  • Annual Subscription7 Days trial$29.991 Year
  • Annual Subscription1 Year trial2 variants$29.991 Year
2 purchases

MindChess

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly subscription$0.991 Month
  • Yearly subscription$9.991 Year

Questions

Is zenchess free?
zenchess is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is MindChess free?
MindChess is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do zenchess or MindChess have ads?
Neither zenchess nor MindChess shows ads.
Which is updated more often, zenchess or MindChess?
zenchess ships an update weekly, and MindChess every 3 weeks. Most recently, zenchess was updated on November 8, 2026 and MindChess on November 5, 2026.

Other comparisons