Best Chess Coaching Apps for Beginners to Intermediate Players

Best Chess Coaching Apps for Mobile (2025)

Mobile chess apps today blend structured lessons with self‐practice tools to help beginners and intermediates improve. They typically offer interactive courses (openings, strategy, endgames), thousands of tactics puzzles, and game analysis with AI feedback. Some use spaced‐repetition learning and personalized coaching (even talking coaches) to tailor training to your skill level. The top apps also allow play against others or engines, track performance stats, and sync progress across devices.

Chess coaching apps combine lessons, puzzles, and analysis into one platform . For example, Chessable provides hundreds of free courses (openings, tactics, endgames) by top players and uses MoveTrainer™ spaced-repetition to help you remember lines. Meanwhile lichess is completely free and open-source, offering unlimited play, variants, puzzle training, and Stockfish analysis on mobile.

In practice, the best apps adapt to your level. Chess.com – Play & Learn (iOS/Android) includes 500,000+ puzzles, interactive video lessons by GMs, and post-game analysis with move explanations chess.com. Learn Chess with Dr. Wolf (iOS/Android) provides an animated coach that speaks aloud and explains every move, along with 50+ structured lessons and mistake tracking learnchesswithdrwolf.com. Magnus Trainer (iOS/Android) offers gamified mini-lessons by Magnus Carlsen’s team, covering fundamentals through advanced tactics. Other apps like Chess Tactics & Lessons (iOS/Android) focus on tactics drills (thousands of problems) plus guided lessons and openings practice. All these apps have freemium models (free basic access with ads or limited features, optional paid upgrades for full content).

The table below compares key features, pricing, platforms, and user ratings of the top mobile chess-training apps:

Each app has strengths and weaknesses. Chess.com is the most comprehensive, with huge amounts of content and features (live play, puzzles, lessons, analysis, social), but its game reviews and some lessons require a premium subscription chess.com. Lichess is entirely free and open-source, offering very strong puzzle and analysis tools, but it lacks coach‑style guidance and formal lessons (its “Learn” module is limited) lichess.org. Chessable excels at structured study via its courses and MoveTrainer, making it ideal for memorizing openings and patterns, though it doesn’t provide live play or game analysis. Dr. Wolf stands out as a true “coach” that teaches as you play; it’s beginner-friendly and gives immediate move-by-move feedback learnchesswithdrwolf.com, but it’s a paid app and less useful for free-form practice. Magnus Trainer is highly polished and engaging (great for beginners and younger players), but its content is somewhat gamified and less flexible than a full platform. Chess Tactics & Lessons is excellent for puzzles and fundamentals practice and is available completely offline, but it’s narrower in scope (focused on tactics, with fewer video lessons).

Pros & Cons (summary):

• Chess.com – Play & Learn:

  • Pros: Very large library (puzzles, lessons, videos); integrated social play and tournaments; strong analysis tools and game review. Quality content by GMs. Supports all play modes and variants.

  • Cons: Limits on free usage (game reviews/puzzles per day without Premium); interface can feel busy. Recent updates have mixed reviews from some users play.google.com. Subscription required for full access.

• lichess:

  • Pros: Completely free with no ads; very fast and clean app; huge puzzle bank and excellent analysis (Stockfish on every game); correspondence play and many variants; open-source.

  • Cons: No structured lessons or certified content – learning is self-driven. The mobile “Learn” section is minimal. Community and social features are minimal compared to Chess.com.

• Chessable:

  • Pros: Science-backed spaced-repetition courses ensure retention; courses by world-class players; offline mode for PRO; excellent for systematic study of openings, endgames, tactics patterns. Very high user ratings for learning.

  • Cons: Not really a playing platform – you’ll need another app for actual games. To unlock unlimited courses and offline use you need PRO. Focuses on memorization, less on strategy/gameplay context.

• Learn Chess with Dr. Wolf:

  • Pros: Genuine personalized coaching feel; explains ideas and mistakes in plain language; tracks errors for later review; speaks moves out loud (audible). Interface is very beginner-friendly and adaptive.

  • Cons: Paywalled after trial (no truly unlimited free use). More suitable for beginners than advanced players. Limited to training vs “Dr. Wolf” only (no multiplayer or free puzzles outside lessons).

• Magnus Trainer:

  • Pros: Gamified lessons make practice fun (good for motivation). Content covers a wide range from basics to tactics. High production quality (animations, graphics). Free to start and easy to use.

  • Cons: Contains ads (unless paying). Some advanced players find it too simplistic; less control over training (rigid mini-games). Mixed reviews (Android rating is low, though iOS rating is high).

• Chess Tactics & Lessons:

  • Pros: Fantastic tactics database with explanations; lessons on strategy and openings; fully offline after download. Great variety of theme drills. Very high user ratings for training value.

  • Cons: Less emphasis on playing actual games or opening theory depth. Some find the UI a bit dated. Full content requires subscription.

Top Recommendations: For most beginner-to-intermediate learners, Chess.com – Play & Learn is the best all-around choice, given its wealth of lessons, puzzles, and game-review tools chess.com. The Dr. Wolf app is ideal if you want hands-on coaching during play, with clear explanations of every move learnchesswithdrwolf.com. Third, Chessable stands out for structured learning – its courses and spaced-repetition training make memorizing openings and tactics much easier apps.apple.com. All three offer free access to start and optional paid upgrades for full features. Lichess is an excellent free alternative (especially if budget is a concern), providing puzzles and analysis without ads lichess.org.