OpeningTree vs Chess Openings Explorer Pro
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
OpeningTree
Explore chess openings with an extensive opening book and engine analysis. Analyze your games, create custom lines, and study moves from high-rated players. Accessible for visually impaired users.
- Extensive opening book
- Crafty engine analysis
- Load and analyze PGN games
- Create custom move lines
- Accessible for visually impaired
- Mark moves with colors
- Save board to PGN
Read full descriptionHide full description
OpeningTree is a chess openings book based on high rated over the board games that lets one explore the tree of openings and engine analysis is available. Chess game files can be shared with the app to check against the book or to just view. Users can make their own side line moves and back up to return to main line. Also includes ten classic game collections and users can import their own games into the app. Game list are also searchable by tags. The updated opening book is compiled from 640,000 high rated games from recent years with both players rated 2300 and over. Just touch moves in the list or make moves on the board to see what the response is. The numbers next to moves indicate how many games resulted in wins-draws-losses. The idea comes from computer opening books as if we can open up the book and see what those moves are that people play in response to opening positions. Users do not pick an opening to study but start with the full tree. The analyze button on bottom right of board is to flip between viewing the openings move table or seeing Crafty engine analysis. +1.00 score means white is ahead a pawn. -1.00 score means black is ahead a pawn. There is a move now button to make the engine play the current best move if the users wants to try playing a position out against the engine. OpeningTree's board is accessible to the blind and visually impaired using Voice Over. With Voice Over enabled in device settings, tap on a square for info, double tap to select. Or choose from three move methods. When going forward in a loaded PGN game, moves will be announced on each tap of the forward button. Moves can be marked with colors(red, green, yellow) and colorizing a move at the end of a line will extend the line i.e. add move so it shows later. There is also an option to make a note on a position using the control bar. In the Actions menu if the user has imported a chess games file to the App, for example by opening a PGN file with OpeningTree from a mail attachment or download(long touch on the attachment/download for this option), a game from a PGN file can be loaded and checked against the book. If a user makes a new move, back up to the main line to return to the game. To ensure speed, it will only read/load a max of 5000 games. With bigger files users will only see first 5000 games. There is a Save Board to PGN option on the Actions menu. It saves the current moves to openings-user-games.pgn, a file OpeningTree will create on first save. Games are saved with opening name as white and black name to spot the lines in each game. This allows the users to export data out of the App such as favorite lines with the mail games option when looking at a game list. The App comes with six PGN game files that can be optionally installed when no PGN files have yet been opened by the App or the user has deleted their PGN files previously opened and likewise has none to access. If this is the case, this option shows when going to Actions -> load PGN. The files contain a mix of famous classical games, collections of former world champions Gary Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen's games and more recent games from two top ranked international tournaments. PGN stands for portable game notation. It's a file extension that can be used with text files that contain chess games in the PGN format. PGN files can be read by apps to display the games in them. If a game is loaded in the App one can then go to 'Actions -> show game data' to view the raw PGN text.
Chess Openings Explorer Pro
Master chess openings with a comprehensive dictionary and analysis of over 2 million Grandmaster games. Test your knowledge with interactive quizzes and analyze positions using a powerful built-in engine.
- Chess opening dictionary
- Grandmaster game analysis
- Interactive quiz modes
- Position win/loss/draw stats
- Built-in chess engine
- PGN export
Read full descriptionHide full description
Explore chess openings and their variations through a simple and friendly interface, and learn the follow-ups from 2 million+ Grandmaster games! Main features: - Complete dictionary of chess openings and their variations - Browse Grandmaster games associated with each opening - Test your knowledge with various Quiz modes: The app picks an opening and your goal is to either find its name, find which move is best, or play the moves that leads to the opening - Accurate stats for each position: % of wins, losses, draws - Powerful built-in Chess engine (2800+ Elo) to analyze any position - Games can be exported to other apps (PGN format) - Search openings by name or ECO code - Easy to use, simple and clean interface - Full translations in French and German, including opening names - And of course, new features will be added over time!
Screenshots
Verdict
OpeningTree and Chess Openings Explorer Pro both sit at 4.4 stars, but that hides the real split: 83% of OpeningTree's written reviews are positive against 55% of Chess Openings Explorer Pro's. OpeningTree also leads on price ($0.99 vs $3.99). Chess Openings Explorer Pro's advantage is ratings volume (357 vs 31) and chart position (#60 vs unranked). On rating, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
OpeningTree costs $0.99 and Chess Openings Explorer Pro $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Chess Openings Explorer Pro holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chess Openings Explorer Pro has 357 ratings behind it against 31, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 83% of OpeningTree's written reviews are positive against 55% of Chess Openings Explorer Pro's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
OpeningTree ships an update every 2 months, Chess Openings Explorer Pro every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 29, 2026.
| Parameter | OpeningTree | Chess Openings Explorer Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 — better | $3.99 |
| Rating | 4.4 (31 ratings) | 4.6 (357 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 83.3% of reviews — better | 54.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 31 | 357 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Best chart rank | — | #60 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 10.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 52 MB | 40 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Michael Adams | Emmanuel Mathis |
Customer experience
OpeningTree
Chess Openings Explorer Pro
Bugs and requests
OpeningTree
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Chess Openings Explorer Pro
Reported bugs
6 issues- Games fail to load with 'failed to load games' error
- Wrong position displayed when accessing games from position
- Text truncation on opening names (iPhone)
- Incompatibility with older devices (iPad 4)
- App crashes or freezes
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Recent update caused game loading issues
Requested features
12 requests- Built-in chess engine for position evaluation
- Ability to play own moves and get engine feedback
- Play openings against computer opponent
- PGN import functionality
- Quiz mode by opening
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Deeper variant coverage beyond move 5
- Suggest new openings feature
- Engine analysis when opening book ends
- Better explanation of move choices
- Expanded opening database
- Improved text display for full opening names
- More sophisticated sorting options
In-app purchases
OpeningTree
No in-app purchases
Chess Openings Explorer Pro
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is OpeningTree free?
Is Chess Openings Explorer Pro free?
Which has better reviews, OpeningTree or Chess Openings Explorer Pro?
Do OpeningTree or Chess Openings Explorer Pro have ads?
Which is updated more often, OpeningTree or Chess Openings Explorer Pro?
Other comparisons















