Comparison

Chess.ai vs Chess

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

Head to head
About

Chess.ai

Features
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Chess.ai brings the ancient game of chess to life with a twist: your opponent talks back. Powered by Claude — Anthropic's state-of-the-art AI — every match is a real conversation. The AI reacts to your moves, bluffs, celebrates, and occasionally trash-talks. No two games feel the same. THREE LEVELS, THREE PERSONALITIES EASY — A laid-back coach who wants you to improve. Encouraging, patient, and happy to let you off the hook. MEDIUM — A sharp tactician who respects your game but won't hold back. Expect banter and the occasional mind game. HARD — A cold, calculating grandmaster. Minimal words, maximum pressure. Not for the faint-hearted. HOW IT WORKS Make your move on the board — the AI responds with its own move AND a message. Watch the conversation unfold as the position sharpens. Chess has never felt this alive. - Resume unfinished games anytime — your matches are saved automatically - The AI speaks your language: English and Turkish supported - Clean, distraction-free board designed for focus - Satisfying move sounds and smooth animations FREE & PAID PLAY Easy mode is free — play up to 3 games per day at no cost. Craving more? Grab extra easy games or unlock medium and hard matches with a simple one-time purchase. No subscriptions, no tricks. PRIVACY FIRST Chess.ai never asks for your name, email, or any personal information. Your identity is an anonymous ID generated on your device. That's it. Whether you're a beginner looking for a patient sparring partner or an experienced player hungry for a real challenge, Chess.ai meets you where you are — and talks the whole way through. Your move.

About

Chess

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

Chess.ai4 screens
Chess4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Chess at none against Chess.ai's 6. Chess.ai's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, 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. Chess.ai sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Chess asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard2 real differences · 5 level
Chess.ai versus Chess: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChess.aiChess
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—2 — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
DevicesiPhone, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size43 MB1.3 GB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperEmre HarmanAdrondak LLC

In-app purchases

6 purchases

Chess.ai

One-time6
  • Easy Extra 1$0.99
  • 1 Medium Game$0.99
  • 1 Hard Game$1.99
Show 3 more
  • 5 Extra Easy Games$3.99
  • 5 Medium Games$3.99
  • 5 Hard Games$7.99
None

Chess

No in-app purchases

Questions

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

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