Comparison

ChessCheat vs ChessLab

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

Head to head
About

ChessCheat

Features
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ChessCheat is a fast, powerful chess analysis tool that helps you find the strongest moves in any position. Recreate a board from scratch, explore custom setups, or analyse positions from your games. The built‑in engine instantly evaluates the position and shows the best continuation so you can understand the strongest ideas and improve your decision‑making. Whether you want to play out full games, test variations, or dive deep into tactical lines, ChessCheat gives you the clarity you need to outplay any opponent. Features include: • Instant best‑move suggestions See the strongest move and best reply at any moment, with real‑time engine evaluation. • Full Board Mode Play from the starting position or continue from any custom setup. Switch sides freely or tap Play Suggestion to let the engine make the next move automatically. • Custom Board Mode Recreate any position in seconds. Build puzzles, test ideas, or explore “what‑if” scenarios with a simple tap‑to‑place editor. • Win probability & engine insights Understand who’s winning and why with evaluation depth, accuracy, and win‑chance estimates. • Undo, restart, and explore variations Step backward through your game, restart instantly, or branch into new lines. • Clean, simple, fast interface Designed to stay out of your way so you can focus on the chess.

About

ChessLab

Features
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ChessLab is a complete chess companion for iPhone and iPad: play, analyze, train and experiment, with the Stockfish engine built in and without ever leaving the app. HUMAN OPPONENTS Nine characters played by Maia-3, a network trained on millions of human games: it does not look for the best move, it plays the one a human of that level would play, blunders included. Each has a style, a repertoire, a temperament, a portrait, and an adjustable level on the human scale. Or take on Stockfish itself, from beginner (~900 Elo) to maximum (~3190 Elo). With or without a clock. Hints, a warning before risky moves, and an evaluation bar can all be toggled on demand. TWO PLAYERS Play locally on the same device, with a "pass-and-play" mode that flips the pieces so both players read the board comfortably. ANALYZE Run a game or a position through Stockfish: move-by-move classification (inaccuracy, mistake, blunder, brilliant move…), an evaluation graph, best-move and opponent-threat arrows, and auto-play through the moves. Import by PGN, FEN, position editor, or photo scanner. OPENINGS Pick an opening and step through it move by move: every move is explained, the alternatives are offered, and colored arrows link the board to the move list. 58 hand-written openings (bilingual), all reviewed by the engine, with simplified spaced-repetition training to memorize them. THE ENDGAME CORNER 78 courses proven by endgame tablebases — the exact mathematical verdict: no taught move gives up a win, no recommended defence loses a draw. Nine families, from the opposition to famous studies. And free training: finish the position against best defence, where any move that preserves the verdict is accepted — not just the lesson's move. VARIANTS Chess960 (Fischer Random Chess): a randomly drawn starting position, one chosen by number, or one you compose yourself, with a full post-game analysis just like "Play" mode. Eleven more variants against the computer, each with its own analysis: King of the Hill, Three-Check, Horde, Racing Kings, Atomic, Antichess, Crazyhouse, Stolen Move (a token every 7 moves lets you play twice in a row), Duck Chess, Barricades and Random Barricades. YOUR OWN REPERTOIRES Import your openings as PGN, variations included, and drill them with the same system. Share a repertoire as a single file — no account, no server. What you already know about a position counts right away in the imported repertoire. PUZZLES Over 100,000 tactics puzzles from the Lichess database, filterable by rating and theme, plus puzzles generated automatically from your own mistakes in analysis. Spaced repetition and progress tracking included. LABORATORY Pit two Stockfish configurations against each other over a series of games to compare their strength, with an estimated Elo gap and confidence interval. EDITOR AND SCANNER Set up a position by hand, or scan it from a screenshot or a photo — review and correct the recognized position before playing or analyzing it. BUILT FOR IPAD Full-size board with move list, graph and MultiPV visible at once, keyboard and trackpad support, polished portrait and landscape layouts. iCLOUD SYNC (optional) Turn on iCloud sync in Settings so your games follow you across all your devices, via your private iCloud. No account to create, no ChessLab server. Off by default: the app works fully offline. PRIVACY Offline by default: no ChessLab server, no analytics, no ads. Your games and settings stay on your device. iCloud sync, if you enable it, uses your own private iCloud — your data is never shared with the developer. Fully bilingual, French and English. ChessLab embeds the Stockfish engine (GPLv3 license), the University of Toronto's Maia-3 network (AGPLv3 license) and free vector piece sets — cburnett (GPLv2+/CC BY-SA), chessnut (Apache 2.0) and merida (GPLv2+). Full source code and license notices are available from within the app (Settings → Licenses).

Screenshots

ChessCheat4 screens
ChessLab4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: ChessCheat at daily against ChessLab's weekly. On price, ads, in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ChessCheat ships an update daily, ChessLab weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 5 level
ChessCheat versus ChessLab: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChessCheatChessLab
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyDaily — betterWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.218.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size184 MB169 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLondon Blackbook LtdThierry Maeder

In-app purchases

None

ChessCheat

No in-app purchases

None

ChessLab

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ChessCheat free?
ChessCheat is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is ChessLab free?
ChessLab is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do ChessCheat or ChessLab have ads?
Neither ChessCheat nor ChessLab shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ChessCheat or ChessLab?
ChessCheat ships an update daily, and ChessLab weekly. Most recently, ChessCheat was updated on September 28, 2026 and ChessLab on October 2, 2026.

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