Comparison

AGENTIC CHESS vs Serene Chess

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

Head to head
About

AGENTIC CHESS

Experience AI chess matches played entirely on your device. Choose champion models, compete in ranked games, and analyze performance. Offers a unique benchmark for on-device AI capabilities without cloud reliance.

Highlights
  • On-device AI model chess matches
  • Ranked Elo ladder progression
  • Tournaments against scaled opponents
  • Manual play and coached games
  • Hardware performance benchmarking
  • Private by design, no account needed
Features
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Watch real AI models play chess — entirely on your iPhone. Agentic Chess turns your phone into a live arena for on-device language models. Pick a champion, send it into ranked matches against the built-in house opponent, and watch every move unfold with a real game clock and live commentary. No cloud, no server — the models think on your device. (Minimum device specification is iPhone 12, and IOS 26) YOUR CHAMPION, YOUR LADDER • Choose a champion from a roster of open-source models that run fully on-device • Ranked matches move your champion up an authentic Elo ladder, from Bronze to Grandmaster • Tournaments field opponents that scale to your champion's strength • Prefer to play? Take on the AI yourself in manual mode, or team up with your champion in coached games A BASELINE AND ITS CHALLENGERS Every match is a fair experiment. Apple's built-in foundation model plays as the house opponent, completely untuned — the scientific baseline. Your champions are different: each open-source model carries a custom LoRA adapter we train specifically for chess judgment, downloaded automatically alongside the model. Watching a tuned challenger climb past the stock baseline is the whole point — you're seeing, live, how much specialized training moves the needle on identical hardware. A REAL BENCHMARK UNDERNEATH Every game doubles as a hardware benchmark. Agentic Chess measures how fast, how smoothly, and how efficiently each model runs on your exact device — speed, latency, memory, and thermal behavior — and turns it into a performance report you can browse anytime. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account, no email, no login. You're recognized only by a random ID stored on your device, your score and leaderboard position stay private to your installation, and you can download or erase your data at any time from Settings. Models download on first run (about 0.3–1.5 GB each) — Wi-Fi recommended. Additional models fetch quietly in the background while your first game plays.

About

Serene Chess

Features
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Serene Chess is a calm space for deep play: a strong engine, four thousand tactics puzzles, and a review that shows you where the game actually turned. Everything works offline, with no account, no ads, and no data collected. PLAY • A tunable opponent, from a gentle club player to full strength • Three playing styles: Defender, Balanced, Aggressor • Hints, takebacks, draw offers, resignation, and PGN sharing • Your opening named as you play it, from the standard ECO tables PUZZLES • 4,000 tactics puzzles bundled in the app and playable anywhere • Four difficulty bands, from Gentle to Severe • Choose the idea you want to practise: forks, pins, skewers, deflection, back-rank mates, endgames • A new puzzle every day, with streaks and honest progress REVIEW • The engine walks back through your finished game, move by move • Accuracy for both sides, and the moments that decided the result • See what the engine would have played instead • Tap any moment to jump straight to that position on the board QUIET BY DESIGN Soft wood tones, an evaluation bar you can switch off, gentle haptics, and a dark mode that stays dark. Nothing flashes, nothing nags, nothing is sold to you. Stockfish runs entirely on your device. No account, no network, no analytics: your games never leave your phone.

Screenshots

AGENTIC CHESS4 screens
Serene Chess4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is device support: Serene Chess at 3 against AGENTIC CHESS's 1. Serene Chess also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases 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.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
AGENTIC CHESS versus Serene Chess: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAGENTIC CHESSSerene Chess
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (8 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings8 — better—
Update frequencyWeekly—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS26.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size65 MB11 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperMission Peak, LLCWilliam Alston

In-app purchases

None

AGENTIC CHESS

No in-app purchases

None

Serene Chess

No in-app purchases

Questions

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

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