Pulsar Chess Engine vs Chess Endings for Beginners
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- Plays 7 chess variants
- Adjustable AI difficulty levels
- Game logging and review
- Master game collections
- Crafty engine analysis
- VoiceOver accessibility
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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.
Chess Endings for Beginners
Master chess endgames with interactive lessons and practice problems. This app provides explanations, hints, and allows you to play against the computer to improve your rating.
- Interactive lessons with explanations and hints
- Practice problems with varying complexity
- Play positions against the computer
- Theoretical section with interactive examples
- Monitors ELO rating changes
- Offline functionality
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The course is based on the 3 other courses: Beginners to Club, Chess Strategy for Beginners and Total Chess Endings. We carefully selected tasks that are not so easy to play, but not so complex to study. The material is adapted to beginners, and contains a large number of explanations and hints. Much attention is devoted to methods to win having an extra pawn. But we also recommend to pay attention to the technique of standard mates (starting with mates by heavy pieces and ending with mates by bishop and knight). 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. The program also contains a theoretical section, which explains the methods of the game in a certain stage of the game, based on actual examples. The theory is presented in an interactive way, which means you can not only read the text of the lessons, but also to make moves on the board and work out unclear moves on the board. 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. Practice 1.1. Pawn endings 1.2. Rook endings 1.3. Bishop endings 1.4. Knight endings 1.5. Rook against bishop endings 1.6. Bishop against knight endings 1.7. Rook against knight endings 1.8. Queen against pawns 1.9. Queen and pawn against queen 1.10. Queen and pawns against queen and pawns 1.11. Queen against rook endings 1.12. Queen against bishop endings 1.13. Rook mates 1.14. Mating with two bishops 1.15. Mating with bishop and knight 2. Theory 2.1. Standard mates 2.2. Pawn endings 2.3. Knight endings 2.4. Bishop endings 2.5. Bishop against knight 2.6. Bishop pair in the endgame 2.7. Rook against bishop 2.8. Rook against knight 2.9. Rook endings 2.10. Queen endings 2.11. Queen against rook endings
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Chess Endings for Beginners at Free against Pulsar Chess Engine's $1.99. Chess Endings for Beginners also leads on rating (4.8 vs 4.3) and review sentiment (86% vs 71%). Pulsar Chess Engine's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On 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
Chess Endings for Beginners is free to download; Pulsar Chess Engine costs $1.99 up front. Chess Endings for Beginners sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Pulsar Chess Engine asks for nothing beyond the download.
Chess Endings for Beginners holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chess Endings for Beginners has 76 ratings behind it against 12, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 71% of Pulsar Chess Engine's written reviews are positive against 86% of Chess Endings for Beginners's.
Pulsar Chess Engine ships an update every 2 months, Chess Endings for Beginners every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on November 8, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Pulsar Chess Engine | Chess Endings for Beginners |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.3 (12 ratings) | 4.8 (76 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 71.0% of reviews | 85.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 12 | 76 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 8.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 11 MB | 44 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Michael Adams | Chess King |
Customer experience
Pulsar Chess Engine
Chess Endings for Beginners
In-app purchases
Pulsar Chess Engine
No in-app purchases
Chess Endings for Beginners
- Full course$3.99
Questions
Is Pulsar Chess Engine free?
Is Chess Endings for Beginners free?
Which has better reviews, Pulsar Chess Engine or Chess Endings for Beginners?
Do Pulsar Chess Engine or Chess Endings for Beginners have ads?
Which is updated more often, Pulsar Chess Engine or Chess Endings for Beginners?
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