Chess Software

This is a collection of free chess software useful for chess beginners. No shareware or commercial programs are listed.

ChessBase Light - ChessBase Light is a version of ChessBase 6.0 that is free to download. You can save, copy, convert, annotate, print, search, analyse, merge and classify games. It supports CBH and PGN format, but there is an 8000 game limit for each database.

CDB - CDB doesn't limit databases to a size of 8000 games like Chessbase Light. It also converts CBF files used by Chessbase to PGN format. You can add games to the database by importing PGN, text, NIC, ChessBase, or Chess Assistant files, or you can add games from the user interface.

ChessPad - With ChessPad, you can create, edit, and view PGN databases. You can also plug in a winboard-compatible chess engine to play against, or analyze games.

Jose - Jose Chess Database is a graphical chess tool with an attractive interface that you can use to store chess games in a database. You can plug in a chess engine and play against it or use it for analysis. You can also view games and edit variations and comments.

Scid - With the Scid database, you can maintain a database of chess games, search games by many criteria, view graphical trends, and produce printable reports on players and openings. You can also analyze games with any WinBoard-compatible chess engine, and even use Scid to study endings with endgame tablebases.

BabasChess - BabasChess is an amazing Internet Chess Client for Windows. It combines ease of use with powerful features for advanced users, and integrates a fast and customizable playing environment with a powerful PGN viewer/editor. It also supports chess engines so that you can analyze positions and games or play against the computer.

Winboard/XBoard - XBoard and WinBoard are graphical user interfaces for chess. You can use Winboard/Xboard as a front-end for chess engines such as Crafty, GNU Chess, or Comet. You can also use it to connect to chess servers, like FICS, and play against people from all over the world, observe games, or just chat. Winboard/Xboard also serves as a viewer and creator for game files recorded in pgn format.

Arena - Arena is a popular Graphical User Interface for chess programs (engines) by Martin Blume. It runs on Win95, NT4 or higher Microsoft OS versions and is compatible to Winboard protocol I, II, UCI protocol I, II, Chess960, DGT electronic chess board & DGT clock XP, Autoplayer, FICS (Free Internet Chess Server) and much more.

Nagaskaki - NagaSkaki is a free, fully functional chess program. It features different personalities with ratings ranging from 2300 to 1472. The program shows the best possible move and evaluates the current position. An opening book is included, and it also has the ability to load and save pgn files. The software runs on Windows 98, NT, and XP.