Comparison

Chess Reflex vs KarpaChess

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ€” with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Chess Reflex

Features
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Chess Reflex teaches you to beat a player who has never taken a lesson. Not to become a grandmaster โ€” to stop losing to careless mistakes. Everything is built on six rules. Six, not sixty. Develop your pieces in the right order, check what the opponent's last move threatens, count before you capture, count the attackers and defenders of a square, hold an endgame, and never answer in three seconds. These six rules are enough to beat the vast majority of casual players. SIXTEEN ANIMATED LESSONS Each rule is explained on the board, sentence by sentence, with arrows showing exactly what's being discussed. Two minutes per lesson. A voice reads them aloud โ€” a real built-in synthetic voice, not the system's robotic one. 581 EXPLAINED POSITIONS Which piece is hanging? Where's the pin? Mate in one? Every position comes with a written explanation: why this answer, and why not the other one. None is left unexplained. SPACED REVIEW THAT LASTS Cards come back just before you'd forget them. The grade isn't set by hand โ€” it's worked out from your answer and how long you took. PLAY, THEN UNDERSTAND A game against the app, at three levels. At the end, the board stays and you replay your game move by move, with what each move did underneath โ€” what it captured, what it threatened, and where you went wrong. A button jumps straight from one mistake to the next. AND A FULL PATH Eleven drills in the order of a real game: the opening, checking before each move, counting, the four tactical motifs, the endgame, checkmate. OFFLINE, FOR REAL No account. No ads. No trackers. The app never connects to a server: lessons, positions, voice and the artificial opponent all work on a train, on a plane, or deep underground. IN THIRTEEN LANGUAGES French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi. Translated, not machine-run: piece names follow each country's usage, and so does the notation. HOW MUCH IT COSTS Seven days, everything unlocked, no account or card. After that, the theory and the basics stay readable for free, with no time limit. For the rest: $4.99 a month, $29.99 a year, or a one-time $49.99. The first month of the subscription is free. Terms of Use: https://abventis.fr/chessreflex/cgu.html Privacy Policy: https://abventis.fr/chessreflex/confidentialite.html

About

KarpaChess

Features
Read full description

KarpaChess teaches chess on the board. Every lesson shows you an idea, lets you play it, then asks you to prove it on a position you have never seen. Train on rated puzzles, play Stockfish 19 and study the masters, in twelve languages. Everything runs on your device: no account, no ads, no tracking. SEE IT, PLAY IT, OWN IT Each of the 100 lessons follows three beats. See the idea on the board, with arrows and moves played out for you. Play it yourself: if you are stuck, the hint is a sentence the lesson's author wrote for that exact position. Then own it, by solving a puzzle on a new position. The patterns you own go into your Pattern Book, and Sharpen brings them back before you forget them. EIGHT ARTS Foundations, The Story of Chess, The Blade (tactics), The First Moves (openings), The Finish (endgames), The Plan (strategy), The Hunt (attack) and The Chess World. They run from setting up the board to the Greek gift and the Lucena bridge. A RATED PUZZLE TRAINER 240 puzzles in twenty packs, rated from 600 to 2000, with solutions several moves deep. Your first try moves your puzzle rating. After that, replay any puzzle to beat your best. PLAY STOCKFISH 19 Four strengths, from beginner to full strength. Play with a real clock, increment included, or untimed. Ask for a hint, take a move back, and come back to an unfinished game where you left it. REVIEW EVERY MOVE When a game ends, every move is graded best, good, inaccuracy, mistake or blunder, and the turning point is explained. THE STUDIO A library of 240 short, decisive master games in 24 collections, from Paul Morphy in the 1850s to the present day. Import your own games as PGN, with their comments and variations kept. Brilliant moves are flagged, and the drawing tools put arrows, lines, highlights, shapes, a pen and text on the board. A HINT WHEN YOU ASK One hint button, answered on your device. It looks at material, king safety, pawn structure, development and loose pieces, and says what matters. MAKE IT YOURS Ten themes, five boards, ten original piece sets, three typefaces and three sound packs. TWELVE LANGUAGES English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Indonesian, Japanese, Hindi, Turkish, Italian and Portuguese. The app, every lesson and every puzzle are translated by hand. PRIVATE BY DESIGN KarpaChess collects no data. It never connects to the internet, and everything it keeps stays on your device. FREE SOFTWARE KarpaChess is free software under the GNU GPL, version 3 or later. Its complete source code is published at https://github.com/mourad-ghafiri/KarpaChessMobile

Screenshots

Chess Reflex4 screens
KarpaChess4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: KarpaChess at none against Chess Reflex's 3. KarpaChess also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price and ads there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Chess Reflex sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. KarpaChess asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard3 real differences ยท 3 level
Chess Reflex versus KarpaChess: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChess ReflexKarpaChess
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyโ€”Every 3 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, iPod โ€” better
Requires iOS17.015.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size343 MB171 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAlexandre ABELLOMourad GHAFIRI

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Chess Reflex

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly$3.991 Month
  • Yearly$24.991 Year
One-time1
  • Lifetime$44.99
None

KarpaChess

No in-app purchases

Questions

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

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