Comparison

Pulsar Chess Engine vs Karjakin

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

Head to head
About

Pulsar Chess Engine

Play chess and six popular variants with adjustable AI difficulty levels. Review logged games, access master game collections, and utilize Crafty engine analysis for standard chess and Chess960. Offers accessibility features for blind users.

Highlights
  • Plays 7 chess variants
  • Adjustable AI difficulty levels
  • Game logging and review
  • Master game collections
  • Crafty engine analysis
  • VoiceOver accessibility
Features
Read full description

The Pulsar Chess Engine plays Chess and six variants all with multiple levels. The variants are Chess960, Crazyhouse, Loser's, Atomic, Three Checks and Giveaway. Rules included in-app. In addition, there is also a review mode to look at the user's log file with analysis available for non variants. 10 game collections of classic and modern master games are included to look at including Kasparov, Fischer, Carlsen, Capablanca and Morphy 1858 collections. These collections and the log file are searchable. Pulsar values mobility and active positions. In app there is an article with more on its playing style and how to train against it. With the variants, each has its own style. Chess960, Three Checks and Crazyhouse are the more chess like variants and adoptable to learn to play for anyone with interest. The rules of all games are in app. Pulsar has levels of play from beginner too advanced. Games with a time control are the hardest though Pulsar doesn't call the player's time. The time is more to handicap Pulsar's strength, but users will have a clock and can see if it's gone negative if they want to play the time control. The game button - configure game menu item, lets the user control the variant and difficulty. It defaults to Chess at Easy(lowest level) but remembers the current settings when the App restarts. There are choices of pieces and board color schemes. The Pulsar program was originally developed by me for computers starting in 1998 and came to mobile for the first time in 2014. Pulsar's board is accessible to the blind using Voice Over, a screen reader. Tap on a square and it will say whats on it and double tap to move or choose from three move methods. A screen reader can normally read anything with text like a button, but a board is a collection of images. To make it accessible, text must be returned to Voice Over when a tap is in the area of a square. Pulsar began as a chess program and later learned variants. It ran extensively on two servers for many years both at chess and variants. The ratings on the board reflect strength I saw in rated play on handicapped bots. They are not 100% exact but generalizations I made from the various bots I ran at different settings. If in the new game selector, Play vs. Computer is unchecked the user can move for both sides. This is to allow two people at same location to use the App as a board for a game and have the app enforce move legality and results for whatever variant is selected.

About

Karjakin

Enhance your chess skills with interactive lessons and exercises based on grandmaster Sergey Karjakin's games. Practice tactics, strategy, and openings with personalized coaching and feedback. Play against the computer in any position.

Highlights
  • Play like Karjakin
  • Play against Karjakin
  • Interactive theoretical lessons
  • Personalized coaching and hints
  • Rating (ELO) monitoring
  • Offline play
Features
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2232 games played by the Sergey Karjakin. 120 exercises: play like Karjakin and play against Karjakin. This course is in the series Chess King Learn (https://learn.chessking.com/), which is an unprecedented chess teaching method. In the series are included courses in tactics, strategy, openings, middle game, and endgame, split by levels from beginners to experienced players, and even professional players. With the help of this course, you can improve your chess knowledge, learn new tactical tricks and combinations, and consolidate the acquired knowledge into practice. The program acts as a coach who gives tasks to solve and helps to solve them if you get stuck. It will give you hints, explanations and show you even striking refutation of the mistakes you might make. Advantages of the program: • High quality examples, all double-checked for correctness • You need to enter all key moves, required by the teacher • Different levels of complexity of the tasks • Various goals, which need to be reached in the problems • The program gives hint if an error is made • For typical mistaken moves, the refutation is shown • You can play out any position of the tasks against the computer • Interactive theoretical lessons • Structured table of contents • The program monitors the change in the rating (ELO) of the player during the learning process • Test mode with flexible settings • Possibility to bookmark favorite exercises • The application is adapted to the bigger screen of a tablet • The application does not require an internet connection The course includes a free part, in which you can test the program. Lessons offered in the free version is fully functional. They allow you to test the application in real world conditions before releasing the following topics: 1. 1998-2001 1.1. Volume 1 1.2. Volume 2 2. 2002-2003 2.1. Volume 1 2.2. Volume 2 2.3. Volume 3 3. 2004-2005 3.1. Volume 1 3.2. Volume 2 3.3. Volume 3 4. 2006-2007 4.1. Volume 1 4.2. Volume 2 4.3. Volume 3 5. 2008 5.1. Volume 1 5.2. Volume 2 6. 2009-2010 6.1. Volume 1 6.2. Volume 2 6.3. Volume 3 6.4. Volume 4 7. 2011-2012 7.1. Volume 1 7.2. Volume 2 7.3. Volume 3 8. 2013 8.1. Volume 1 8.2. Volume 2 9. 2014 9.1. Volume 1 9.2. Volume 2 10. 2015-2016 10.1. Volume 1 10.2. Volume 2 10.3. Volume 3 11. Play like Karjakin 11.1. Tournament games 11.2. Rapid games 12. Play against Karjakin

Screenshots

Pulsar Chess Engine4 screens
Karjakin4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Karjakin at Free against Pulsar Chess Engine's $1.99. Karjakin also leads on rating (4.9 vs 4.3) and review sentiment (100% vs 70%). Pulsar Chess Engine's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 3 months). On ratings volume, 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

Karjakin is free to download; Pulsar Chess Engine costs $1.99 up front. Karjakin sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Pulsar Chess Engine asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Karjakin holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 12 and 8 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 70% of Pulsar Chess Engine's written reviews are positive against 100% of Karjakin's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pulsar Chess Engine ships an update every 2 months, Karjakin every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Pulsar Chess Engine versus Karjakin: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPulsar Chess EngineKarjakin
Price$1.99Free — better
Rating4.3 (12 ratings)4.9 (8 ratings) — better
Positive reviews70.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings12 — better8
Update frequencyEvery 2 months — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.68.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size11 MB45 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMichael AdamsChess King

Customer experience

Pulsar Chess Engine

All ratings12 ratings
Positive83.3%
Neutral8.3%
Negative8.3%
Written reviews30 reviews
Positive70.0%
Neutral10.0%
Negative20.0%

Karjakin

All ratings8 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Pulsar Chess Engine

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Karjakin

One-time1
  • Full Course$3.99

Questions

Is Pulsar Chess Engine free?
Pulsar Chess Engine costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Karjakin free?
Karjakin is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Pulsar Chess Engine or Karjakin?
Karjakin is rated higher. Pulsar Chess Engine averages 4.3 out of 5 from 12 ratings, while Karjakin averages 4.9 from 8 ratings.
Do Pulsar Chess Engine or Karjakin have ads?
Neither Pulsar Chess Engine nor Karjakin shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pulsar Chess Engine or Karjakin?
Pulsar Chess Engine ships an update every 2 months, and Karjakin every 3 months. Most recently, Pulsar Chess Engine was updated on October 29, 2026 and Karjakin on October 24, 2026.

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