Comparison

CBoard Chess vs Chess

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

Head to head
About

CBoard Chess

Enjoy a distraction-free chess experience with a powerful AI opponent. Play instantly without an internet connection on your iPhone or iPad. This app offers a clean interface and multiple built-in engines for practice and play.

Highlights
  • Multiple built-in chess engines
  • Offline play (no internet required)
  • Clean, fast, and intuitive interface
  • Instant new games
  • Designed for iPhone and iPad
  • No ads, accounts, or tracking
Features
Read full description

CBoard Chess is a fast, elegant offline chess app designed for players who want a clean, distraction-free experience with powerful built-in AI engines. Play against multiple computer engines, practice your skills, and enjoy smooth, responsive gameplay without needing an internet connection. Features: • Multiple built-in chess engines • Offline play — no internet required • Clean, fast, and intuitive interface • Instant new games • Designed for iPhone and iPad • No ads, no accounts, no tracking Whether you're a casual player or a serious fan of chess engines, CBoard Chess gives you a pure and focused way to enjoy the game.

About

Chess

Engage in chess matches with a unique AI opponent that converses with you, offering commentary and personality. This offline game features a powerful local LLM for dynamic interactions and a robust chess engine with adjustable difficulty.

Highlights
  • AI opponent with personality
  • Local LLM for chat
  • Stockfish chess engine
  • Adjustable difficulty levels
  • Offline play
  • Full chess rules
  • Animated reactions
Features
Read full description

Chess-Buddy is a chess game where your computer opponent also talks with you using a powerful local LLM, Qwen 3 trained at 1.7 Billion parameters. This Chat system has been wrapped and designed to conform to this game giving a dynamic personality to the gameplay that feels alive and rich with a friendly buddy to play with. I like playing chess on my phone but I really like playing with a person. This isn't quite as nice as playing casual chess with a friend but it's pretty nice. Play chess against a real engine (the chess side of the AI is running on stockfish, the leading open source chess engine that everyone agrees is really great, with also selectable difficulty levels). After almost every move, Buddy reacts — with a short line, a funny face might happen, and occasionally a little shade. You can chat freely between moves too. Buddy will respond. It's less like playing against a computer and more like playing against a friend who happens to be very good at chess but awkward at conversation, Not to say it is a bad chat LLM it's just not set up to work like a personal assistant anymore, the conversation is with a LLM that is essentially now Chess-Buddy. Everything runs on your phone. No internet required. No account. No ads. No subscription. The chess engine and Buddy's brain are built in. --- CHESS • Full rules: all legal moves, castling, en passant, pawn promotion with a piece picker • Four difficulty levels — Friendly (800), Casual (1200), Competitive (1600), Expert (2200) • Undo moves and reset anytime • Game saves automatically — pick up exactly where you left off BUDDY • Reacts to the game with short, personality-driven commentary • 11 animated face states — Buddy goes mindblown when something wild happens • Chat freely: ask for help, vent about your last move, just hang out • Runs entirely on-device with a local AI model — no data leaves your phone DESIGN • Bright, friendly, cartoon — not a dark chess robot • Tap or drag pieces, whichever feels natural • Haptic feedback for captures, check, and checkmate • One screen. No menus to get lost in. ChessBuddy is made by Adrondak LLC. Chess engine: Stockfish (GPL v3) — stockfishchess.org Personality model: Qwen3-1.7B (Apache 2.0) — Qwen Team / Alibaba Cloud Inference runtime: llama.cpp (MIT) — Georgi Gerganov

Screenshots

CBoard Chess4 screens
Chess4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Chess at 17.0 against CBoard Chess's 26.1. On price, rating, ratings volume and ads 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

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for CBoard Chess against 5.0 for Chess. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 2 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 7 level
CBoard Chess versus Chess: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCBoard ChessChess
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings)
Number of ratings12 — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS26.117.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size2 MB1.3 GB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTONY E CAMPBELLAdrondak LLC

In-app purchases

None

CBoard Chess

No in-app purchases

None

Chess

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is CBoard Chess free?
CBoard Chess is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Chess free?
Chess is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, CBoard Chess or Chess?
CBoard Chess and Chess are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 2 ratings respectively.
Do CBoard Chess or Chess have ads?
Neither CBoard Chess nor Chess shows ads.

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