- Software
- April 15, 2022
- 8:48 pm
Best Chess Software for PC [Top 5]
Finding the right chess software for PC can be very challenging given the how many options are available to PC users to explore. Knowing what is and isn’t good or will fit your needs may not be clear. Below are our reviews of the top 5 chess software for PC. We’ve listed these from best to worst, and have tried to be as fair and objective as possible in our analysis, giving our reasoning for each sub rating. We hope you find this helpful in your chess journey!
#1 Chessquid
About
Chessquid is a revolutionary chess software designed for chess players, from club players to the best Grandmasters, to help you prepare against opponents. Chessquid Database comes with more than 4 Million Games, many from top GMs.
Overview
Chessquid offers a robust set of very well thought out features that will benefit a wide array of player types, from grandmasters, club players, to the casual learner – and they do all of this with a very intuitive user interface, looking quite a bit more sleek and modern than any competitors on this list. It’s easy to navigate, taking very little time for a beginner or new user to understand how to use their features. It has all the important features useful to clubs and professional chess players for databases and chess analysis, while also adding some new ideas to how to approach these systems, such as the move tree, move highlighting, and database management system. The Trap Finder was a real gem to discover. The software feels fairly stable, especially considering how new it is, and the performance is top notch. Chessquid definitely beats out its rivals in every category on this list, and perhaps in categories we haven’t even mentioned. They have excellent access to learning material, such as an easy to use tactics and lessons system, and provide very useful comments and ideas on their database games. It’s worth noting that you can use any engine with their software, although it comes prepackaged with Arasan, an excellent open-source engine. We also found the process for adding and choosing your default engine to be the easiest by far compared with any other software.
4.5/5
4.5/5
5/5
5/5
4.5/5
4/5
4/5
Overall Rating
User Interface
Database Management
Features
Performance
Stability
Learning Material
#2 HIARCS
About
HIARCS Chess Explorer is a superb new chess database, analysis and playing program for either PC Windows or Apple Macintosh computers. It offers a truly innovative and intuitive new graphical user interface together with the reigning World Chess Software Champion HIARCS 14 chess engine. This unique combination is refreshingly easy to use and includes many unique new features for managing chess databases, chess preparation, analysis and training for players of all abilities from beginner to Grandmaster.
Overview
HIARCS seems to have a fairly dated interface, looking like something right out of 2010. HIARCS offers a relatively easy system for handling databasing chess games, but it seems to have quite a high learning curve for most users. But they seem to also be lacking in important key features that any chess club or professional chess player might be left wanting for managing their games. The software is lightweight on performance, and seems relatively stable for most users. While it can be said the interface is certainly an improvement over some competitors on this list, it is difficult to pin down exactly how to do some key functions like adding annotations, and navigating through databases, which are very important to a lot of club players and grandmasters. HIARCS also lacks in learning material such as lessons and tactics.
3.4/5
3/5
4/5
3/5
4.5/5
4/5
2/5
Overall Rating
User Interface
Database Management
Features
Performance
Stability
Learning Material
#3 SCID
About
SCID is an open application to view, edit, and manage collections of Chess games. It is multi-platform: it runs on Windows, Unix/Linux, OSX, and Android.
SCID is an acronym that stands for Shane’s Chess Information Database.
Overview
SCID has by far the oldest and most dated interface of any software on this list. In addition to having a very high learning curve with a lot of feature stuffing, SCID seems to miss the mark on intuitive user interface. Less importance seems placed on what features are most important and should be easy to access, and more emphasis is placed on just having everything stuffed together with no easy way to identify what buttons do what or where you should be navigating to access the features you need. It does the job it needs to do, but again, with a steep curve for anyone who may not be familiar with database software. Because of its dated interface, some things are hard to read or navigate through, although performance definitely improves as a result of this interface. However, there are a lot of stability and crashing concerns for most users.
2.9/5
2/5
3/5
3/5
4.5/5
3/5
2/5
Overall Rating
User Interface
Database Management
Features
Performance
Stability
Learning Material
#4 Lucas Chess
About
Lucas Chess has 61 engines prepared to play from the start, and with very different levels, from 0 to 3300 elo.
This list of engines is not closed and you can add other ones with the only limitation that they use the UCI protocol.
The game can be set, limiting the depth of analysis of the motor or the time used to think, or by modifying the way in which it decides. You can also choose the opening, or start in a certain position, or that the engine uses a book of openings or more or less aid.
Overview
Lucas Chess is a very simple software with a relatively simple interface. However, it can be a bit difficult to know how to do some basic functions and may have a slight learning curve. It seems more geared toward children, so it may lack the robust features needed for club managers or grandmasters looking to maximize database organization and deep analysis. The stability is good and there is some decent learning material for the beginner player. Performance is also good. It leaves a lot to be desired in general. But given all of this, it is freeware, so it makes sense that it may not be the most robust software on the list. Every major feature is relegated into submenus and doesn’t have a very good front-facing way to interact with it. For instance, saving databases is deep into 3 submenus, and requires a new pop-up window to open and search databases. All in all, it feels very disjointed.
2.9/5
2/5
3/5
2/5
4/5
4/5
2.5/5
Overall Rating
User Interface
Database Management
Features
Performance
Stability
Learning Material
#5 Chess King 4
About
Works with Windows
Simple to install, just copy app to applications folder
Play, Learn, Analyze with the top engine Houdini 4
Includes an updated GigaKing Games database, more than 6 million games
Overview
Chess King 22 is by far the worst chess software we found for PC. Their website looks very old, and their software is very minimalistic and dated. Everything seems more geared toward marketing rather than toward user satisfaction, though that could just be appearances. In addition to concerning reports regarding stability and performance with their software, the software itself seems poorly maintained. Their interface and software doesn’t seem to have gone through many changes since 2014 at the time of its public release. However, they do have some nice features for learning material, such as tactics and lessons and multiple languages. Their software has a very high learning curve and a very steep price. There also isn’t a very useful database system for club members or grandmasters, although you can explore your own games and do basic analysis. There is also a companion app for mobile.
1.75/5
1.5/5
1/5
3/5
1/5
1/5
3/5
Overall Rating
User Interface
Database Management
Features
Performance
Stability
Learning Material
Read also
