Book2Board vs KarpaChess
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Book2Board
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Give your chess books a board. Book2Board brings your own PDF chess books, an interactive board and Stockfish analysis into one place. Follow a line, try another move and return to the page with your ideas intact. FROM THE PAGE TO THE BOARD In PDFs with selectable text, detect supported chess notation, review the resulting line or position, then load it onto the board. Scanned pages and diagrams can still be studied by setting up the position manually. EXPLORE YOUR OWN IDEAS Play moves, branch into variations and revisit earlier positions. Your saved study retains its move tree, selected move and board perspective. Export your moves as PGN to continue working in other chess tools. CHECK WITH STOCKFISH Analyze positions locally with Stockfish 17. Compare candidate lines and choose your analysis settings. The engine works offline; downloading your PDFs may require a connection. A WORKSPACE THAT FITS Read beside the board in a wide workspace, or switch between book and board on a compact screen. Resume your reading position and zoom. Set up positions with the editor or FEN, and choose board themes and notation styles. YOUR BOOKS, YOUR STUDY Import PDFs from Files. Book2Board does not include a book catalogue. Notation detection requires selectable text; it does not scan diagrams or convert entire books automatically. Optional PDF sync through iCloud requires signing in to iCloud. One-time purchase. No subscription. Available in 11 interface languages. Support: hello@book2board.app
KarpaChess
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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
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: KarpaChess at Free against Book2Board's $1.99. KarpaChess also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 3 months) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On ads, in-app purchases and device support 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
KarpaChess is free to download; Book2Board costs $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Book2Board ships an update every 3 months, KarpaChess every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Book2Board | KarpaChess |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | Free โ better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 3 days โ better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod โ better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 15.0 โ better |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 89 MB | 171 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Rhinolabs Agency LLC | Mourad GHAFIRI |
In-app purchases
Book2Board
No in-app purchases
KarpaChess
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Book2Board free?
Is KarpaChess free?
Do Book2Board or KarpaChess have ads?
Which is updated more often, Book2Board or KarpaChess?
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