OpeningTree vs ChessCoda
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
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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.
ChessCoda
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ChessCoda is chess coaching from your own games. Your AI Coach finds the moment that decided each game, explains what you missed in plain language, and turns it into practice. REVIEWS THAT TALK YOU THROUGH IT Import your games from Lichess or Chess.com, or play right in the app. Every game is analyzed by the ChessCoda Coach Engine. Your coach talks you through the key moments on the live board: what happened, why you missed it, and what to play instead. TWENTY OPPONENTS, ONE AT YOUR LEVEL Spar any time against twenty opponents rated 800 to 2000, each with a style of their own: attackers, tricksters, grinders and strategists. They play the moves a real person at their rating would play, not perfect engine chess. Finished games land in your library and get reviewed like any other game. DRILLS FROM YOUR OWN GAMES An endless stream of puzzles built from the mistakes you actually make, themed around what your coach wants you to sharpen next. The positions you got wrong come back until the pattern sticks. INSIGHTS THAT TRACK YOUR PROGRESS See your recurring weaknesses and how they change over time, which phase of the game costs you the most, and your opening repertoire with the move where you usually leave theory. HONEST BY DESIGN We can't promise rating points. Nobody honestly can. What we promise is that you'll always know the single most useful thing to work on next. FREE AND PLUS Free: analysis of every game with accuracy and move-quality marks, puzzles at your level, progress insights, one coached review and 10 Coach games each week. Plus: the one lesson of every game and why it happened, reviews your coach picks for you plus 2 of your choice each week, deeper Insights into your leaks, and practice drills built from your own mistakes. Available monthly or yearly. Subscriptions are billed to your Apple Account and renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel anytime in your App Store account settings. Terms of Service: https://chesscoda.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://chesscoda.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: ChessCoda at Free against OpeningTree's $0.99. ChessCoda also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 2 months). OpeningTree's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.0). On 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
ChessCoda is free to download; OpeningTree costs $0.99 up front. ChessCoda sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. OpeningTree asks for nothing beyond the download.
OpeningTree ships an update every 2 months, ChessCoda weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | OpeningTree | ChessCoda |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.4 (31 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 83.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 31 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 52 MB | 54 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Michael Adams | Maritacas OÜ |
In-app purchases
OpeningTree
No in-app purchases
ChessCoda
- Plus Monthly$5.991 Month
- Plus Yearly$49.001 Year









