Chess engines list and download links
This page will be updated from time to time. Here you will find best chess engines and settings for different purposes: strongest play, human-like playstyle, fast engines for short time controls, etc.
We will try to provide direct download links for most programs without any crappy file-hosting websites.
For shareware chess engines, we will
only provide links to official websites.
All links will be for Windows versions, because ChessBotX is available for Windows only.
If you would like to suggest good chess engine or specific config for it, please send us a message and it will appear on this page.
Stockfish
Stockfish is a strongest chess engine at
the moment. It is well-rounded and good
for any purposes. However default versions
of Stockfish don't support books usage.
New! - Stockfish 17 has been released!
Brainfish
Brainfish is the clone of the
Stockfish with support of
polyglot (.bin) opening
books.
It is especially designed to
work with very good opening book called "Cerebellum".
Brainfish was a really good and strong chess engine. But now it is quite outdated.
Direct download Brainfish
Houdini
Komodo
Houdini is a legendary chess engine by
Robert Houdart. Latest version (Houdini 6)
is pretty strong, however it is a bit weaker
than current versions of Stockfish.
But we recommend to try Houdini 4
along with the advisor mode. Houdini 4 Pro has unique style
and can provide good moves even at low depth. Try to use advisor at Depth = 8, you will get fast and pretty strong calculation. ELO: 3399
Official website
Direct download free Houdini 1.5 version
Komodo is another very strong engine.
However, instead of depth, it more relies
on evaluation.
That is why Komodo is known for its
positional style and human-like play.
This chess engine is also recommended to use with advisor mode. Also you can give it a try in solving puzzles.
Fire
Fire is a free program with decent
evaluation and solid moves.
Fast as Stockfish, but slightly weaker.
However, it has different style. Always been in the top 5 of recent years at TCEC.
Maybe you will be interested in trying it at blitz and bullet games. Unfortunately, doesn't support opening books by itself.
Website
Direct download Fire 9.3 chess engine
Also, this version is good for advisor mode: Fire_trap_32x
Clarabit
Surprised? Clarabit is not well known
indeed. It is also very weak in playing
against other engines.
However, this program is good, if your want to simulate 1500-1800 ELO player. Recommended to use along with advisor mode in blitz chess under 2000 rating at chess.com.
Optimal engine depth = 8.
Official website
Rybka
Rybka is a legendary chess engine
created by Vasik Rajlich. In times past
it was the strongest program in the
world.
Today it is still pretty strong, maybe in top-20 rank. Rybka has many configurable parameters which allow to achieve different playstyles - from defensive to very aggressive.
ELO: 3148
Official website
Direct download Rybka 2.3.2
Gull
Gull is an open source engine from
Vadim Demichev.
The latest version of Gull 3 was released
in 2014, but it is always striking in its ability to fight to the end against modern engines.
It is like a honey badger in the world of computer chess.
ELO: 3181
Website
Gull 3 download
Ethereal
Ethereal is a very strong open source
chess engine written by Andrew Grant.
Although Ethereal is greatly influenced
from Crafty, Stockfish and Fruit, it has pretty unique style.
It is in the top-10 best programs at the
moment. If you would like to test some good alternatives for Stockfish, then Ethereal 14 is your choice.
ELO: 3550
Website Direct download Ethereal
Github
WildCat
WildCat is a free UCI compliant chess
engine by Igor Korshunov.
It is very outdated, but can be
succesfully used for advisor mode at blitz 2000-2500 rating.
Better to use this engine instead of the default Stockfish, because it less strong, which make it more human-like.
Latest version is WildCat 8, it has 2629 ELO according to CCRL 40/15.
Website Download WildCat 8 chess engine
Recommended package:
Stockfish Polyglot engine + Cerebellum opening book + Syzygy endgame tablebases!
Stockfish Polyglot
Cerebellum
Opening book with many lines. Must have for fast play in debut.
Put path to this book into the BookFile parameter at Engine Settings - see how to do it here.
Cerebellum direct download link
Syzygy
Syzygy is precalculated endgame tables (aka EGTB).
Chess engine with EGTB will play stronger than without it.
Put path to the unzipped folder with tablebases into the "Syzygy" parameter. See more info here.
5-men Syzygy tables download
Eman
Eman is a Stockfish based UCI chess
engine by Khalid Omar.
Eman playing style is both aggressive
and optimistic. The engine always
assumes that it will find something
(and it often does) in drawing or losing positions.
Interesting chess engine, worth trying.
ELO: 3573
Website Direct download Eman 8.60 chess engine
Leela Chess Zero
Hakkapeliitta
Hakkapeliitta is an UCI chess engine
written in C++11/14 with support
for Syzygy tablebases.
Version 3.0 has a rating of around 2950 at CCRL and 2820 at CEGT, making it approximately the 20th strongest chess engine in the world on a single thread.
Website Chess engine direct download
Igel
Igel is a free UCI chess engine forked
from GreKo 2018.01
In August 2020 Igel switched to NNUE
as a main evaluation function using Dietrich Kappe's NiNu network file and is currently approaching the top ten strongest chess engines on CCRL list.
Good engine with style.
Website Direct download Igel 3.5.0
Booot
Booot is an open source UCI compatible
chess program written in Delphi 6
by Alex Morozov.
Booot has played in many chess tournaments including TCEC. It showed good attacking chess and a good game in general.
If you like active and aggressive chess program - Booot is your engine.
Website Direct download
Schooner
Schooner is a chess engine by
Dennis Sceviour running under
Windows.
The hobby project already started
in the late 70s and was revived using Magic Bitboards in 2015.
Absolutely awesome engine with unique style. Also, it's pretty strong for an old engine (can defeat Stockfish 8 LVL at lichess). Recommended to test!
Website Direct download
Gaviota
Gaviota (Spanish word for Seagull) is a
chess engine available for Windows,
Linux, Android, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X.
When It was released in 2001, it was the first Argentinian engine available. Gaviota supports its own endgame tablebases, book, and can use several processors (SMP). It has the ability to learn by remembering book lines and positions that were not good. Gaviota avoids them in following games.
Website Direct download
Laser
Laser is a UCI-compliant chess engine
written in C++11 by Jeffrey An
and Michael An.
Engine that started as a project from scratch in July 2015 as a hobby engine between two brothers, Jeffrey and Michael An. It had its first 1.0 release in December 2015
Laser is a participant of TCEC Season 9. It showed good performance with a good attacking chess. Give it a try.
Website Direct download
RubiChess
RubiChess is a pretty strong UCI open
source chess engine by Andreas Matthies.
Latest version uses NNUE evaluation.
Rubi started in 2016 as a private hobby
project to practise programming in C++ and to see the engine improving compared to earlier releases.
Meanwhile some years later RubiChess got pretty competitive and is listed in most of the rankings and plays a lot of even big tournaments.
Website Direct download RubiChess 20240817
GreKo
GreKo is a chess engine by Vladimir
Medvedev, written in C++.
First version was released in 2002.
Estimated playing strength of GreKo is about 2600-2700 points, depending on hardware and time control.
You will find 2 versions in the downloaded archive: GreKo 9 (2011 year) and the latest Greko (2021).
Website Direct download
Tornado
Tornado is an UCI compliant chess
engine by Engin Ustun.
First released in 2004.
Latest Tornado uses NNUE with the Stockfish net. You will find both Tornado_NNUE and classic Tornado_8 versions in the downloaded file.
Use Tornado_8 to feel unique style of the engine.
Tornado 9.1 is the latest version.
Website Direct download
Hermann
Hermann is a UCI engine by Volker
Annuss. Hermann is Arena GUI partner
engine.
Program participated in many chess tournaments in the past. Pretty legendary engine, try it someday. Elo: 2528 (ccrl).
Website
Direct download Hermann 2.8
Pedone
Pedone is UCI chess engine by Fabio
Gobbato. It progressed rapidly,
and already won the IGT 2014 and
the IGT 2015.
With the release of its commercial successor Revenge in July 2021, Pedone is no longer under development.
Latest release is 25/04/2021 version.
ELO: 3327
Website Download the latest 3.1.7z version
Nemorino
Nemorino is a UCI chess engine written
by Christian Guenther. First released
in September 2016 under the GPLv3
license.
Nemorino's board representation and move structure are taken from Stockfish. Latest Nemorino uses NNUE evaluation. Engine participated in TCEC tournament.
ELO: 3346 (ccrl)
Website Direct download (NNUE)
Latest version with classic evaluation
NirvanaChess
Nirvana is a chess engine by Thomas
Kolarik, written in C++, first released
in April 2013.
Latest version (2.5) was released on
December 6, 2020.
ELO: 3225 (ccrl).
Pretty good, well-known and respected engine.
TCEC participant.
Website Download NirvanaChess 2.5
Crystal
Crystal is a UCI chess engine derived
from Stockfish. Crystal seeks to address
the following issues where engines
often have trouble:
1) Positional or tactical blindness due to over reductions or over pruning.
2) Draw blindess due to the move horizon (50 move rule).
Example: classic Stockfish cannot correctly evaluate this position. Crystal quickly finds a draw.
Website Direct download Crystal 8.0
Download Crystallite 1.1
SugaR
SugaR - Stockfish clone by
Marco Zerbinati.
First released in 2014. Very strong.
Supports up to 2 opening books in BIN (polyglot) format.
Unfortunately, this project is no longer active.
Direct download the last version Sugar 2.50 + Net
Zevra
Maia
Maia is a human-like neural
network chess engine.
The main goal of this net is to
play the human move - not
necessarily the best one.
Maia is trained on millions of games, and tries to predict the human move played in each position seen.
Website GitHub with more Nets (from 1100 to 1900 ELO)
Download Ready-To-Use 1800 ELO Maia chess engine
[Important: always use Engine Depth = 1 with this engine]
Koivisto
Koivisto is a very interesting chess
engine made primarily by Kim Kåhre
and Finn Eggers in C++ language.
One of the strongest non-neural engines by this moment.
Try it in bullet, blitz and rapid time controls.
Website
Direct download Koivisto 9.2
Open this page on your PC.
There are a lot of chess engines here.
But all of them - for PC Windows.
If you need Android, MacOS, iOS or Linux chess engines - check this page.
Chess System Tal
Chess-System-Tal-NNUE-2 is a UCI
chess engine written in C++ by
Chris Whittington and Ed Schröder.
CSTal is designed to play in the
romantic and dangerous style of Michael Tal, famous for his daring and aggressive style of play.
ELO: around 3650
Website
Direct download Chess System Tal 2.0
Berserk
Berserk is an open source chess
engine by Jay Honnold written in C.
First released in February 2021.
Very strong top-10 chess engine.
ELO: around 3680 (see CCRL rating list)
Website
Direct download Berserk 13
Caissa
Caissa -
strong chess engine,
written from scratch by
Michał Witanowski in C++.
In development since
early 2021. Optimized for
regular chess and chess960.
ELO: around 3500
Website
Direct download Caissa 1.21
Black Marlin
Black Marlin - UCI compatible open
source chess engine by Doruk
Sekercioglu, written in Rust.
Released in October 2021.
Pretty interesting chess engine with own style.
ELO: around 3500
Website
Direct download Black Marlin 9
Simplex
Simplex - UCI open source chess
engine by Antonio Torrecillas,
written in C++ and licensed under
the GNU General Public License.
Simplex was first published with sources in 2010, while its development already started at least in 2007.
ELO: around 2300 (equal to Stockfish Level 6 at lichess).
Website
Direct download Simplex 0.9.8
Fairy Stockfish
Fairy-Stockfish is an engine that can
play chess variants like Crazyhouse,
Antichess, Atomic, Horde, Three
Checks, Racing Kings and many others.
Fairy-Stockfish is free, and distributed under the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPL v3).
Website
Example: ChessBotX + FairyStockfish playing Atomic
Direct download Fairy-Stockfish-14
FoxSEE
FoxSEE - a cute little engine written
in Rust, with an approximate ELO
rating of 2500.
Although it doesn't support MultiPV, it has its own unique style.
It's worth trying out against weaker bots, like Stockfish level 6 on Lichess.
Website
Direct download FoxSEE v.8.2
Obsidian
Obsidian, a very strong UCI chess
engine written in C++, was developed
in April 2023. Currently, it is among
Top-5 best chess engines in blitz.
Good substitution for Stockfish and Komodo Dragon.
You can test it yourself against Magnus and Hikaru bots on chess.com, for example.
Website
Direct download Obsidian 14
Bumblebee
Bumblebee is a small but interesting
project by Shawn Chidester, with
an ELO rating of around 2300.
At depth 6, it plays equally to Stockfish level 6 on Lichess.
Unfortunately, the engine does not provide any options to change. But if you're tired of countless clones of Stockfish, it's an engine worth experimenting with.
Website
Direct download Bumblebee 1.0.36
Seer
Seer is a cool and powerful UCI
chess engine with an ELO rating of
around 3500, placing it in the Top 20.
It supports .BIN opening books, but lacks MultiPV, making it better suited for automatic play mode.
Good for all time controls: bullet, blitz, rapid and classic.
Website
Direct download Seer 2.8 64bit