Are you looking for the best online chess apps on the web or on your smartphones?
Before the advent of popular chess servers like lichess and chess.com, chess players played chess online on platforms like yahoo chess, but yahoo chess is no more today because of some major changes that took place at Yahoo in 2014.
Yahoo chess gained a lot of traction when it was active but today, we have new players in the game.
In this article, you’ll find a list of the current top five best online chess apps to learn, socialize, play with friends and family and even get along with strangers in the chess community.
The rules of chess are the same in these online chess apps, but the features differ. Some apps and platforms target a more committed audience, while others are simpler and may suit those seeking to dabble against a less competitive crowd.
Table of Contents
The Best Online Chess Apps are:
1. Chess.com
This is virtually the most popular chess server, it serves every level of play from newbies to grandmasters. Games on chess.com are available at any speed ranging from as brisk as one minute per side in the bullet category to as long as five days per side in the correspondence category.
You can also play against different chess bots, each with its strengths and playing style. There are puzzles and tutorials for you to learn at your pace, watch live streams of your favorite grandmaster's game and even find a mentor.
The subscription package comes in three tiers at $5, $7, and $14 per month, or around half those amounts if you pay for a year upfront. Every tier removes all ads, unlocks every bot, and allows for unlimited use of its game analysis tool in which an AI evaluates every move of your games and suggests alternatives. The middle tier allows unlimited access to the site’s chess puzzles, while the lowest tier allows you 25 puzzles per day. The top tier opens up Chess.com’s full video library of lessons and game analyses.
Users can learn and play several variants on the live server including chess960, three-player, four-player, crazy house, king of the hill, and bughouse.
There is so much to explore among the free options that it makes sense to start there, and it’s easy to scale up as warranted by your desire for chess dominance. Chess.com has a web server for PC and mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.
2. Lichess
Lichess has one of the largest chess communities. Playing a game of chess is far from the only thing you can do on this amazing app. Whenever you complete a game on Lichess, you can request computer analysis from the latest Stockfish chess engine. Using this feature lets you learn from your mistakes or even compare your games with an immense database of grandmaster games.
One of Lichess’ main priorities is to improve the site and its user experience. The site has the basic offerings as chess.com but its appearance is more intuitive and easy to use for a newbie. You can get into a game right away on lichess without signing in if you don't care about tracking your games, you also have access to some puzzles, live streams, and chat sections.
Lichess is available for desktop, iOS, and Android devices. It is also worth mentioning that Lichess runs an ads-free experience on all these devices.
3. Chess24
Chess24 is known for its live coverage of major international tournaments from around the world, featuring well-known commentators such as Peter Leko and Yasser Seirawan. You can stay up to date with the latest chess news and international tournaments on chess24.
Chess24 allows chess players to play against each other in different time formats including bullet, blitz, rapid, and classical time controls. Users can also join online tournaments, watch informative chess videos and play with the computer's chess engine.
4. Dr. Wolf
While you play chess, Dr. Wolf teaches pointing out good moves and bad ones and the reasoning behind them. At times, he’ll gently suggest you reconsider a move or ask a question at a critical moment. Plus, you get unlimited hints, unlimited undo, and unlimited access to our Lesson Library, with twenty-five lessons in Dr. Wolf’s unique style.
Dr. Wolf will coach you for free for 3 games then you'll need to subscribe to his coaching services after that for $5 per month or $35 per year. It had to be on our list of best online chess apps.
Dr. Wolf is available only on iOS and Android devices.
5. Magnus Trainer
Magnus Trainer has puzzles and exercises set, with dozens of lessons and mini-courses hosted and narrated by world champ Magnus Carlsen.
Training with Magnus Trainer comes at a pricy cost of $8 per month and $75 per year or a one-time fee of $300. The apps follow a freemium model, where you download a free version and then make an in-app purchase to upgrade the experience. You can as well use the free tier but not without regular paywall bumps.
It has a comprehensive app that is available on Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac.
Some amazing features of these online chess apps include;
- Joining tournaments and clubs to compete with other players across the world and win cash prizes, allows you to make money from what you love.
- Aside from making money, you can send requests to your friends to play chess and connect with them.
- You can also join the communities and indulge in discussions about chess and off-topic discussions. Communities are great places to find chess chess memes, if you're into memes yourself, you can post your chess memes and have fun with new friends in the community.
- You can also play blindfold chess. Lichess was the first chess website to have features to help visually impaired people play chess on a website.
- You can create your own on chess.com blog and potentially rank in the search results of Google.
You can connect your lichess and chess.com accounts to a web trainer like Aimchess. It tracks the unique playing style of players to craft the best chess training for every individual. There are other awesome chess websites that allow you to train online, some for free and others subscription-based. If you want to improve your skills as a chess player you should make use of chess training websites like Aimchess.
