Comparison

OpeningTree vs Chess puzzles!

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read 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.

About

Chess puzzles!

Engage in mind-teasing chess challenges designed for all skill levels, from beginners to seasoned players. Test your strategic thinking with various puzzle difficulties and enjoy a fun variation of the classic board game.

Highlights
  • Tutorial levels for beginners
  • Simple tap and drag controls
  • Mate in 1 challenges
  • Mate in 2 challenges
  • Alternate chess challenges
  • Categorized difficulty levels
Features
Read full description

Do you love chess & puzzle challenges? Well, you’ll love Chess Puzzles! This fun variation of the chess game includes mind-teasing challenges categorized in levels that are sure to test your chess skills and problem-solving thinking. Can you pass all levels? Great for anyone! From beginner to seasoned chess player! WHY YOU’LL LOVE CHESS PUZZLES! - Tutorial levels included (great for beginners) - Simple tap & dragging controls - Mate in 1, mate in 2 challenges and some alternate challenges - Cool variation of the classic board game Now, it’s chess puzzle time! Download the app for free!

Screenshots

OpeningTree4 screens
Chess puzzles!4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Chess puzzles! at Free against OpeningTree's $0.99. Chess puzzles! also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.4) and ratings volume (1.3K vs 31). OpeningTree's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 4). On review sentiment, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Chess puzzles! is free to download; OpeningTree costs $0.99 up front. Chess puzzles! sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. OpeningTree asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Chess puzzles! holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chess puzzles! has 1.3K 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 78% of Chess puzzles!'s, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

OpeningTree ships an update every 2 months, Chess puzzles! every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 19, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
OpeningTree versus Chess puzzles!: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOpeningTreeChess puzzles!
Price$0.99Free — better
Rating4.4 (31 ratings)4.7 (1.3K ratings) — better
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews — better78.0% of reviews
Number of ratings311.3K — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 6 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.613.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size52 MB15 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMichael AdamsErik Brandsma

Customer experience

OpeningTree

All ratings31 ratings
Positive83.9%
Neutral6.5%
Negative9.7%
Written reviews24 reviews
Positive83.3%
Neutral4.2%
Negative12.5%

Chess puzzles!

All ratings1,305 ratings
Positive94.3%
Neutral3.2%
Negative2.5%
Written reviews41 reviews
Positive78.0%
Neutral7.3%
Negative14.6%

Bugs and requests

OpeningTree

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Chess puzzles!

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Puzzle with no solution ("Mate in 3 - Queen pack - AAAAAAAY-OH")
  • Puzzle solution not recognized ("you have one move only ;)")

Requested features

4 requests
  • Reset puzzle option
  • Next puzzle button
  • Ability to make wrong moves in puzzles
  • Puzzle solution hints or explanations

In-app purchases

None

OpeningTree

No in-app purchases

4 purchases

Chess puzzles!

One-time4
  • Fun pack!$0.99
  • Human vs machine$0.99
  • Funky moves$1.99
Show 1 more
  • Remove all ads$1.99

Questions

Is OpeningTree free?
OpeningTree costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Chess puzzles! free?
Chess puzzles! is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, OpeningTree or Chess puzzles!?
Chess puzzles! is rated higher. OpeningTree averages 4.4 out of 5 from 31 ratings, while Chess puzzles! averages 4.7 from 1.3K ratings.
Do OpeningTree or Chess puzzles! have ads?
Neither OpeningTree nor Chess puzzles! shows ads.
Which is updated more often, OpeningTree or Chess puzzles!?
OpeningTree ships an update every 2 months, and Chess puzzles! every 6 weeks. Most recently, OpeningTree was updated on October 15, 2026 and Chess puzzles! on October 19, 2026.

Other comparisons