Comparison

Chess Opening Tactics Trainer vs KarpaChess

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

Head to head
About

Chess Opening Tactics Trainer

Features
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A chess opening trainer that helps you learn your openings and remember them. Build a repertoire, train it with spaced-repetition reviews, and sharpen it with 80,000+ puzzles taken from real games - with a strong chess engine built in. Whether you open 1.e4, 1.d4 or something less common, there is a line to learn and a puzzle from your opening waiting for you. YOUR REPERTOIRE, REMEMBERED Add the lines you play as White and Black, learn them move by move, then recall them from memory. Reviews come back just before you would forget, so your lines stay sharp without hours of study. Each move comes with the idea behind it. A PLAN FOR EVERY DAY Three short steps a day โ€” review your lines, meet a new opening, solve puzzles โ€” in about 10โ€“15 minutes. Keep your streak and level up as you go. 80,000+ OPENING PUZZLES Positions from real games and classic opening traps, sorted by opening: Sicilian, Queen's Gambit, Italian Game, French, Caro-Kann, Ruy Lopez, London System, King's Indian, Slav, Nimzo-Indian, English, Scotch, Vienna, King's Gambit and many more. Puzzles adapt to your rating, from beginner to 2200+. OPENING EXPLORER Browse 12,000+ named openings and variations. See the main replies, how often each move is played, and add any line to your repertoire with one tap. SCOUT YOUR OPPONENT Preparing for a tournament game? Import an opponent's games from Lichess or Chess.com, see the openings they play and where they go wrong, and drill a plan against them. PLAY THE ENGINE Play Altair, our own neural-network chess engine, on 8 levels from about 800 to 2350 Elo, with or without a clock, plus Chess960. Test your repertoire in a real game, then review it move by move. ANALYSIS Analyse any position or game with the built-in engine: best lines, evaluation and the move you should have played. PUZZLE SMASH Solve as many puzzles as you can in 3 or 5 minutes, or survive with 3 lives. HINTS THAT TEACH Stuck? A hint points you in the right direction without giving the move away. WORKS OFFLINE Puzzles, your repertoire and the engine run on your phone - train on a train, on a plane, anywhere. MAKE IT YOURS Board themes, piece sets and app themes, light or dark. TRACK YOUR PROGRESS Rating, accuracy by opening, solved puzzles and your weakest lines - see what to train next. Available in English and Polish. Free to use with ads; some features have a daily limit. Premium removes the ads and the limits. Privacy Policy: https://dawikk-apps.vercel.app/ChessOpenings/privacyPolicy.html Terms of Use: https://dawikk-apps.vercel.app/ChessOpenings/termsOfUse.html

About

KarpaChess

Features
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KarpaChess teaches chess on the board. Every lesson shows you an idea, lets you play it, then asks you to prove it on a position you have never seen. Train on rated puzzles, play Stockfish 19 and study the masters, in twelve languages. Everything runs on your device: no account, no ads, no tracking. SEE IT, PLAY IT, OWN IT Each of the 100 lessons follows three beats. See the idea on the board, with arrows and moves played out for you. Play it yourself: if you are stuck, the hint is a sentence the lesson's author wrote for that exact position. Then own it, by solving a puzzle on a new position. The patterns you own go into your Pattern Book, and Sharpen brings them back before you forget them. EIGHT ARTS Foundations, The Story of Chess, The Blade (tactics), The First Moves (openings), The Finish (endgames), The Plan (strategy), The Hunt (attack) and The Chess World. They run from setting up the board to the Greek gift and the Lucena bridge. A RATED PUZZLE TRAINER 240 puzzles in twenty packs, rated from 600 to 2000, with solutions several moves deep. Your first try moves your puzzle rating. After that, replay any puzzle to beat your best. PLAY STOCKFISH 19 Four strengths, from beginner to full strength. Play with a real clock, increment included, or untimed. Ask for a hint, take a move back, and come back to an unfinished game where you left it. REVIEW EVERY MOVE When a game ends, every move is graded best, good, inaccuracy, mistake or blunder, and the turning point is explained. THE STUDIO A library of 240 short, decisive master games in 24 collections, from Paul Morphy in the 1850s to the present day. Import your own games as PGN, with their comments and variations kept. Brilliant moves are flagged, and the drawing tools put arrows, lines, highlights, shapes, a pen and text on the board. A HINT WHEN YOU ASK One hint button, answered on your device. It looks at material, king safety, pawn structure, development and loose pieces, and says what matters. MAKE IT YOURS Ten themes, five boards, ten original piece sets, three typefaces and three sound packs. TWELVE LANGUAGES English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Indonesian, Japanese, Hindi, Turkish, Italian and Portuguese. The app, every lesson and every puzzle are translated by hand. PRIVATE BY DESIGN KarpaChess collects no data. It never connects to the internet, and everything it keeps stays on your device. FREE SOFTWARE KarpaChess is free software under the GNU GPL, version 3 or later. Its complete source code is published at https://github.com/mourad-ghafiri/KarpaChessMobile

Screenshots

Chess Opening Tactics Trainer4 screens
KarpaChess4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: KarpaChess at none against Chess Opening Tactics Trainer's 7. KarpaChess also leads on ads (none vs shown) and update cadence (every 3 days vs every 2 months). On price and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Chess Opening Tactics Trainer sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. KarpaChess asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chess Opening Tactics Trainer ships an update every 2 months, KarpaChess every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences ยท 2 level
Chess Opening Tactics Trainer versus KarpaChess: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChess Opening Tactics TrainerKarpaChess
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 3 days โ€” better
AdsYesNo โ€” better
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, iPod โ€” better
Requires iOS16.415.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size146 MB171 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDawid WrzesinskiMourad GHAFIRI

In-app purchases

7 purchases

Chess Opening Tactics Trainer

Subscriptions4
  • Espresso Subscription$2.991 Month
  • Flat White Subscription$5.993 Months
  • Latte Subscription$7.996 Months
Show 1 more
  • Super Large Subscription$12.991 Year
One-time3
  • Espresso$3.99
  • Flat White$6.99
  • Latte$9.99
None

KarpaChess

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Chess Opening Tactics Trainer free?
Chess Opening Tactics Trainer is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is KarpaChess free?
KarpaChess is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Chess Opening Tactics Trainer or KarpaChess have ads?
Chess Opening Tactics Trainer shows ads; KarpaChess does not.
Which is updated more often, Chess Opening Tactics Trainer or KarpaChess?
Chess Opening Tactics Trainer ships an update every 2 months, and KarpaChess every 3 days. Most recently, Chess Opening Tactics Trainer was updated on October 24, 2026 and KarpaChess on October 23, 2026.

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