ChessGrader / Compare review tools
Chess game review tools, compared honestly
We checked every tool on this page ourselves — loaded them, ran real games through them, and watched what their code actually did. Here is where ChessGrader wins, and the two places it doesn't.
Almost every free chess analyser makes the same three promises: unlimited reviews, no signup, and privacy. Some of them mean it. We went and checked, on 2 August 2026, by running games through each tool and reading the network traffic while it worked.
The short version
ChessGrader is the only tool here that has no ads, no paid tier, no account, and no cap, and it is one of only two that speak your review out loud. The tools that beat us on polish do it by showing you advertising, charging a subscription, or uploading your games — usually more than one of the three.
Everything, side by side
| Ads | Free limit | Account needed | Spoken coaching | Paid tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChessGrader | None | Unlimited | Never | Yes | None — everything is free |
| Chessigma | Yes — display ads on the review page | Unlimited | No, to analyse | No | Yes, from $14/mo |
| Chessiro | AdSense installed sitewide | Unlimited | Yes, for Chess.com/Lichess import | Yes | Yes, from $10/mo |
| WintrChess | Yes — Google AdSense | Unlimited | No | No | None |
| Chess It Up | Yes — full programmatic stack | Unlimited, but depth 12 | No | No | Yes, from $1/mo |
| Chesskit | None | Unlimited | No | No | None |
| Chess.com Game Review | Yes, on the free plan | 1 review per day | Yes | Yes | Yes, for unlimited review |
| Lichess | None | 40/day, 200/week | Yes, for server analysis | No | None |
Checked 2 August 2026 by loading each product signed out and inspecting what it requested. Prices are the lowest advertised paid tier and exclude tax. Chess.com localises pricing by country, so we have deliberately not quoted a figure for it.
What each one does with your games
This is the row that varies most, and the one nobody puts in their own comparison table.
| Where analysis runs | What reaches their servers | |
|---|---|---|
| ChessGrader | Your browser | Nothing from the game itself. Your PGN, moves, and analysis never leave the device. Finished reviews of imported games add one public summary line — usernames, result, opening, accuracy — which you can switch off, and pasted PGNs are never shared. |
| Chessigma | Your browser | The game. Pasting a PGN while signed out wrote it to their database, and any player’s analysed history is publicly browsable by username. |
| Chessiro | Your browser, plus Lichess cloud lookups | Nothing observed for a signed-out PGN review. |
| WintrChess | Browser engine, classification on their server | Your moves and evaluations. Their policy says PGNs may be retained, anonymised, to improve the site. |
| Chess It Up | Your browser (paid tier uses their cloud) | Nothing observed for a signed-out review. |
| Chesskit | Your browser | Nothing but position lookups to Lichess’s public cloud cache. |
| Chess.com | Their servers, for a full Game Review | The game — it is already on your account there. |
| Lichess | Their volunteer compute network | The game — it is already on your account there. |
The closest rival: Chessigma
Chessigma is the best-known tool in this category and genuinely good — a wide product with puzzles, trainers, mobile apps, and a large content surface. Three things separate us.
- Advertising. Their review page carries display advertising, served through a full header-bidding stack. Their own pricing page sells “No ads” as a paid feature. ChessGrader has never run an ad and has no plan to.
- Your games become public. When we pasted a PGN into Chessigma while signed out, it was written to their database — and analysed histories are browsable by username by anyone. ChessGrader computes your review on your own processor and never receives the game.
- The coach costs money. Their per-move AI explanation sits behind a founding-member subscription; signed out, the button returns an authentication error and a payment modal. Every explanation ChessGrader writes is free, and it talks.
In their favour: their engine depth is user-selectable up to 30, they have shipped iOS and Android apps, and their move-label vocabulary can be switched to match Chess.com’s exactly in one click. If you want a large, polished product and don’t mind the ads or the subscription, it is a reasonable choice.
The other one worth knowing: Chessiro
Chessiro is the only other tool here that reads your review aloud — a genuine text-to-speech coach, and they claim 24 languages, which we could not independently check beyond English. It also runs a newer Stockfish than we do and did not store our signed-out PGN review, which is a good privacy result.
The catches: analysing your Chess.com or Lichess games needs an account, the per-move AI explanations on your own games are behind sign-in, the coach is metered by subscription tier, and Google AdSense is installed on every page — we simply never saw one served. There is no “type a username, get your games” flow at all.
Where we don’t win
Two things, stated plainly, because a comparison page that claims a clean sweep is not worth reading.
- Raw engine depth. Lichess searches roughly two million nodes per move on their own hardware, and Chess.com runs a full Game Review server-side. ChessGrader uses a fixed 100,000-node budget so that every device produces the same grade, with the moments that decide labels re-searched at 600,000. That is a real difference and we’re not going to spin it — see the methodology.
- Breadth. Chessigma and Chessiro are whole training platforms with puzzles, opening trainers, spaced repetition, and mobile apps. ChessGrader reviews games and drills the mistakes it finds. If you want one app for everything, it isn’t us.
How close is ChessGrader to Chess.com’s numbers?
Closer than you would expect from something that runs in a browser tab. Across a corpus of publicly reviewed games, our accuracy scores land a mean of 4.3 points from Chess.com’s own figures, 17 of 24 player scores fall within five points, and the stronger player is identified correctly in every game tested. On individual move labels we agree with Chess.com on 65% of 406 walked moves, with most of the remaining disagreement sitting on the Excellent/Good/Best boundary rather than on blunders.
We publish those figures, and the thresholds behind them, on the methodology page. Chess.com’s exact formula is private, so nobody — including anyone claiming a higher score — can do better than measured compatibility here.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free chess game review tool?
For a free, unlimited review with no ads and no account, ChessGrader and Chesskit are the only two tools we tested that qualify — and of those, only ChessGrader grades on the full Chess.com-style label ladder, estimates a game rating, drills your mistakes, and reads the review aloud. Chessigma, WintrChess, and Chess It Up are all free but ad-supported.
Does Chessigma have ads?
Yes. When we loaded a Chessigma game review signed out on 2 August 2026, the page carried display advertising served through Venatus and Google Publisher Tag with a full header-bidding stack. Their own pricing page lists "No ads" as a paid-plan feature.
Which chess analysis tools have voice coaching?
Of the tools we tested, three speak: ChessGrader, Chessiro, and Chess.com. ChessGrader is the only one of those three that is free, needs no account, and has no daily limit. Chessigma, WintrChess, Chess It Up, and Chesskit have no spoken coaching at all — their audio is move sound effects.
Do any of these upload my games?
It varies, which is why we tested it. Pasting a PGN into Chessigma while signed out wrote the game to their database, and analysed histories are publicly browsable by username. WintrChess sends your moves and evaluations to its server for classification and its policy allows retaining PGNs anonymised. ChessGrader, Chesskit, Chessiro, and Chess It Up all completed a signed-out review without sending the game anywhere.
Is ChessGrader really free with no catch?
Yes. There is no paid tier, no account, no daily cap, and no advertising. It is free because the Stockfish analysis runs on your own device rather than on servers we would have to pay for, which means the marginal cost of your review is zero to us.
How accurate is ChessGrader compared to Chess.com Game Review?
Our accuracy scores land a mean of 4.3 points from Chess.com’s across a corpus of publicly reviewed games, with the stronger player correctly identified in every game tested. On individual move labels we match Chess.com on 65% of 406 walked moves. Both figures and the thresholds behind them are published on our methodology page.
Related reading: the best free game review tools, Lichess vs Chess.com analysis, and how many free Game Reviews you get on Chess.com.