Chess Puzzles vs Train Chess
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Chess Puzzles
Enhance your chess skills with adaptive tactical training. Solve millions of real-game puzzles to build pattern recognition and increase your rating. The system adjusts to your level, offering structured sessions for steady progress.
- Adaptive puzzle difficulty
- Millions of real-game chess puzzles
- Themed tactical training (forks, pins, etc.)
- Engine-supported analysis
- Rating growth and accuracy tracking
- Structured training sessions
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Turn every puzzle into progress. Train with 5M+ puzzles from real games, personalized to your level. When you make a mistake, understand why - and learn from it. That’s the idea we built this app around. Solving more puzzles is useful, but we wanted training to be about more than getting a position right or wrong. We wanted every puzzle to teach you something - about the move you missed, the pattern you didn’t recognize, or the way you calculated the position. There are more than 5 million puzzles from real games. But the number itself isn’t really the point. What matters is finding the right positions for you, at the right difficulty, and helping you learn from them. When you make a mistake, you can understand why. Use hints, explore better moves, get coaching, and look deeper into the position instead of simply moving on to the next puzzle. Over time, your training starts to reveal which tactical patterns give you the most trouble. You can practice across 64 motifs and patterns - forks, pins, sacrifices, checkmates, endgames, and many more - and spend more time on the ideas that need it. You can also see how your training develops over time: your rating, accuracy, training time, and performance across different patterns. And when you’re ready for something truly advanced, there are more than 300,000 composed chess problems from solving competitions. They’re difficult, precise, often beautiful - and solving them can be one of the most satisfying forms of chess training. We’ve also tried to make this a place you’ll actually want to come back to. Solve a few puzzles when you have five minutes. Sit down for a longer session when you feel like training seriously. Build a streak, reach a milestone, or simply keep showing up. Whether you’re new to tactics or have been playing chess for years, the goal stays the same: Learn something from every puzzle. Play better chess. And we’re here to help you along the way. Privacy Policy: https://chess.phd/privacy/ Terms of Use: https://chess.phd/terms/
Train Chess
Master hundreds of essential positional endgames to elevate your chess skills. Practice against an engine to improve your late-game win rate and conversion. This app focuses on crucial endgame scenarios for strategic improvement.
- Hundreds of positional endgames
- Engine practice
- Improve win rate
- Master endgame conversion
- Strategic improvement
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Train Chess features hundreds of must-know positional endgames that will improve your game. Master positions against the engine and increase your win rate late in the game and master your endgame conversion.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Train Chess at none against Chess Puzzles's 26. Train Chess also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.8) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). Chess Puzzles's advantage is ratings volume (238 vs 1). On price, update cadence, ads and device support 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
Both are free to download. Chess Puzzles sells 20 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per 7 days. Train Chess asks for nothing beyond the download.
Train Chess holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chess Puzzles has 238 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Chess Puzzles | Train Chess |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (238 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 94.7% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 238 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days | Every 4 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 111 MB | 35 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sergei Tovmasian | Camren Todd |
Customer experience
Chess Puzzles
Train Chess
In-app purchases
Chess Puzzles
- Premium Weekly3 Days trial$3.997 Days
- Chess.PhD Weekly Access3 Days trial$3.997 Days
- Chess.PhD Premium (1 Week)$4.997 Days
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- Premium Weekly3 variants$4.997 Days
- Chess.PhD Weekly Premium3 Days trial$4.997 Days
- Chess.PhD Monthly Premium$6.991 Month
- Chess.PhD Monthly Access$7.991 Month
- Chess.PhD Premium (1 Month)$9.991 Month
- Premium Monthly3 variants$9.991 Month
- Premium Annual$29.991 Year
- Chess.PhD Annual Access$39.991 Year
- Chess.PhD Premium (1 Year)7 Days trial$49.991 Year
- Chess.PhD Premium (1 Year)3 Days trial$49.991 Year
- Premium Annual2 variants$49.991 Year
- Premium Annual3 Days trial2 variants$49.991 Year
- Premium Annual7 Days trial$49.991 Year
- Premium 1 Year3 Days trial$49.991 Year
- Chess.PhD Annual Premium$49.991 Year
- Premium Annual7 Days trial$79.991 Year
- Premium Annual3 Days trial$79.991 Year
Train Chess
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Chess Puzzles free?
Is Train Chess free?
Which has better reviews, Chess Puzzles or Train Chess?
Do Chess Puzzles or Train Chess have ads?
Which is updated more often, Chess Puzzles or Train Chess?
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