Comparison

Gambito vs Chess

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

Head to head
About

Gambito

Features
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Gambito is a full-featured chess analysis and training app built for practical improvement. Play, analyze, and study in one focused workspace with fast local performance and no account required. Analyze positions with Stockfish 18 for precise tactical depth and Maia (lc0) for a human-like neural perspective. Move seamlessly between game play and analysis to inspect critical positions, compare continuations, and understand the ideas behind each move. Key capabilities: - Play against the engine with adjustable strength - Real-time evaluation, depth feedback, and top-move suggestions - Multi-line analysis for comparing candidate plans - Hint arrows and danger/threat visualization - Blunder, mistake, and missed-opportunity detection - Puzzle generation from your own game history - Opening guidance and post-move review workflows - Save and resume games for long-term training - Support for compatible electronic chess boards Whether you are preparing for tournament games, practicing openings, or sharpening tactics, Gambito gives you clear, actionable insight to help you make stronger decisions. Terms of Use (EULA): https://gambitochess.com/terms.html

About

Chess

Features
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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

Gambito4 screens
Chess4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Chess at none against Gambito's 2. Gambito's advantage is device support (4 vs 1) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). On price and ads there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Gambito sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Chess asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard3 real differences Ā· 3 level
Gambito versus Chess: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGambitoChess
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 5 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone
Requires iOS13.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size249 MB1.3 GB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDynadelAdrondak LLC

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Gambito

Subscriptions2
  • Premium Plan$0.991 Month
  • Premium Plan7 Days trial$5.991 Year
None

Chess

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Gambito free?
Gambito is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Chess free?
Chess is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Gambito or Chess have ads?
Neither Gambito nor Chess shows ads.

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