Comparison

ChessMate vs ChessLab

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

Head to head
About

ChessMate

Features
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ChessMate is live online chess and serious training in one clean, focused app. Play rated games against real opponents, warm up against an always-available practice opponent, and sharpen your tactics with a library of more than 1,000 rated puzzles. LIVE ONLINE MULTIPLAYER Jump into a live rated game in seconds. Choose bullet, blitz, rapid, or classical, tap Find Game, and matchmaking pairs you with another player in real time. Every rated game counts towards your Elo, so each win moves you up the ladder. CHESSMATE COACH Never wait for an opponent. When the queue is quiet, ChessMate Coach — your always-available practice opponent — steps in so you can start a live game straight away. Perfect for warming up before a rated match or fitting in a quick game at any hour. DAILY PUZZLE Start each day with a fresh tactical puzzle. The daily puzzle is free for everyone and rotates every 24 hours, so there is always a new problem waiting when you open the app. PUZZLE LIBRARY Work through more than 1,000 rated tactical puzzles covering forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, and the other patterns that decide most games at club level. Each puzzle is rated from beginner to master, so you are always challenged at the right level. PLAY THE COMPUTER Prefer a solo game? Play against the computer at a level that suits you whenever you want a game entirely on your own terms. GAME ANALYSIS Review your games move by move after you play. Spot the turning points, learn from your mistakes, and bring the lessons into your next game. LEADERBOARD See where you stand against the wider ChessMate community. The global leaderboard ranks players by rating, so you always know who is climbing and how far you have to go. ELO RATINGS Track separate Elo ratings for bullet, blitz, rapid, and classical play, plus an overall rating that summarises your form. Your profile keeps a record of every rated game so you can watch yourself improve over time. CLEAN, MODERN INTERFACE ChessMate has a focused, distraction-free interface with a tasteful dark mode, a familiar piece set, and accessibility-friendly contrast. Everything is one tap away from the main board. SIGN IN WITH APPLE ChessMate supports Sign in with Apple alongside email-and-password accounts. You stay in control of your data, and account deletion is one tap away from the Settings screen. SUBSCRIPTION TIERS ChessMate is free to download and play. Optional auto-renewing subscriptions support development and unlock additional content as it becomes available: Gold — 1-month subscription, £2.99/month Gold — 12-month subscription, £29/year (≈£2.42/month) Platinum — 1-month subscription, £4.99/month Platinum — 12-month subscription, £49/year (≈£4.08/month) Diamond — 1-month subscription, £9.99/month Diamond — 12-month subscription, £99/year (≈£8.25/month) Payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. Subscriptions may be managed and auto-renewal turned off in your Apple ID Account Settings after purchase. PRIVACY ChessMate does not sell your data and does not show third-party ads. You can delete your account, including all rating history and gameplay data, directly from the Settings screen. Download ChessMate today — play live, solve the daily puzzle, and watch your rating climb. Terms of Use (EULA): https://chessmate.wolftechnologies.co.uk/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://chessmate.wolftechnologies.co.uk/privacy.html

About

ChessLab

Features
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Completely free, no ads, no account: nothing leaves your device. ChessLab is a complete chess companion for iPhone and iPad: play, analyse, train and experiment, with Stockfish built in, without ever leaving the app. OPPONENTS THAT PLAY LIKE HUMANS 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 and a temperament, and a level set on the human scale. Or take on Stockfish, from beginner (~900 Elo) to maximum (~3190). Optional clock, hints, a warning before risky moves and an evaluation bar, all on demand. ANALYSE AND UNDERSTAND Every move is graded (inaccuracy, mistake, blunder, brilliant…), each player gets an accuracy score, and the app tells you why a move was bad. The Coach adds the share of players at your level who play it. At the end, it offers to turn your mistakes and missed mates into puzzles. Load a game by PGN, FEN, position editor or photo scanner. DAILY SESSION Every day, what to review: opening positions that are due, missed puzzles, an endgame. A streak of days and medals to keep you going. OPENINGS 58 hand-written openings (bilingual), checked against the engine: every move is explained, coloured arrows tie the board to the move list, and spaced repetition makes them stick. Import your own repertoires as PGN too. ENDGAMES 78 courses proven by endgame tablebases: no move taught gives up a win, no defence offered loses a draw. Plus free training, where any move that keeps the verdict is accepted. PUZZLES Over 130,000 problems from the Lichess database, filtered by level and theme, plus your own: drawn from your mistakes, or imported from your own PGN files. Personal rating and “At my level”. VARIANTS AND MORE Chess960 and eleven variants against the computer (King of the Hill, Three-Check, Horde, Atomic, Crazyhouse, Duck Chess, Barricades…), each with its own analysis. Two-player mode, and a Laboratory to compare two Stockfish settings. IPHONE AND IPAD A large board with side-by-side panels on iPad, keyboard and trackpad, portrait and landscape. Fully bilingual, French and English. Optional iCloud sync, off by default. PRIVACY Offline by default: no ChessLab server, no analytics, no ads. Your games stay on your device. 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

ChessMate4 screens
ChessLab4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: ChessLab at none against ChessMate's 6. ChessMate's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. ChessMate sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. ChessLab asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ChessMate ships an update every 2 weeks, ChessLab weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 4 level
ChessMate versus ChessLab: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChessMateChessLab
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size11 MB175 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperWolf Technologies LtdThierry Maeder

In-app purchases

6 purchases

ChessMate

Subscriptions6
  • Gold Monthly7 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Platinum Monthly7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Diamond Monthly7 Days trial$9.991 Month
Show 3 more
  • Gold Yearly7 Days trial$29.991 Year
  • Platinum Yearly7 Days trial$49.991 Year
  • Diamond Yearly7 Days trial$99.991 Year
None

ChessLab

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ChessMate free?
ChessMate is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is ChessLab free?
ChessLab is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do ChessMate or ChessLab have ads?
Neither ChessMate nor ChessLab shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ChessMate or ChessLab?
ChessMate ships an update every 2 weeks, and ChessLab weekly. Most recently, ChessMate was updated on October 31, 2026 and ChessLab on November 6, 2026.

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