Top 15 XBoard Alternative and Similar Games | Dec 2024

XBoard, also known as WinBoard on Microsoft operating systems, is a free graphical user interface client developed by Tim Mann that is compatible with various chess engines that support the Xboard Communication Protocol such as GNU Chess. It also supports Internet Chess Servers, e-mail chess, and the playing of saved games.

It includes international chess, xiangqi (Chinese chess), shogi (Japanese chess) and Makruk, in addition to many minor variants such as Losers Chess, Crazyhouse, Chess960 and Capabanca Chess. It displays a chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and loads and saves games in Portable Game Notation (PGN). It serves as a front-end for many different chess services, including:

1. Raptor Chess Interface

Raptor Chess Interface Raptor is a cross platform chess interface and pgn viewer for the free internet chess server: FICS. It has the following features:Games tab with a settings and table view, Seek Tab with a settings, table, and graph view, Bugwho tab with adjustable settings for partners,teams, and games, Speech support for......

2. Scid vs. PC

Scid vs. PC Shane's Chess Information Database is a powerful Chess Toolkit, with which one can create huge chess databases, run engine analysis, or play casual games against the computer or online with the Free Internet Chess Server. It was originally written by Shane Hudson, and has received strong contribution from Pascal Georges......

3. WinBoard

WinBoard Winboard works more as a graphic front-end for several different chess engines included with the game, as well as for several chess game modes. These include not only player vs player or human vs computer competitions, but also games played online and even by email. WinBoard also lets you save......

4. LightFICS

LightFICS LightFICS is a FICS/freechess,org Mac OS X application to play chess online. The app has automatic login and automatic game search (aka quickplay). It's very easy to setup and play for beginners using a single-click to play. The chess games can be copy-pasted from the LightFICS app to an external......

5. BabasChess

BabasChess BabasChess is a new revolutionary Internet Chess Client for Windows. It combines ease of use with powerful features for advanced users; integrates a fast and customizable playing environment with a powerful PGN viewer/editor, chess engines support for analyzing positions and amusing chat features.......

6. Mobialia Chess

Mobialia Chess Play against AI or online at FICS or ICC.......

7. Arena

Arena Arena is a FREE available Graphical User Interface (GUI) for chess programs (engines) by Martin Blume. Arena runs on Win95, NT4 or higher Microsoft OS versions. Arena is compatible to Winboard protocol I, II and UCI protocol I, II. Furthermore, compatible to Chess960, DGT electronic chess board & DGT clock......

8. GameKnot

GameKnot Play chess online! The premier online chess battleground - play a friendly chess game online or compete in chess tournaments, chess teams, solve chess puzzles, FREE!......

9. Chess Walk

Chess Walk Chess Walk is an Android chess application allowing offline and online (via FICS) play.......

10. Pawn2

Pawn2 A nice freeware chess program with 3D pieces and variable levels of difficulty. Can be quite strong, with customizable setting for number of moves for the AI to look ahead, and for the AI to use known openings. Is quite fast as well.......

11. iNemesis

iNemesis iNemesis is a free chess program that allows you to play on the FICS (free internet chess server). iNemesis Version 5.0 is a major rewrite of previous versions. Its interface is quite simple, yet it gives you twice the power. The major goal of this rewrite was to remove clutter......

12. Jin

Jin Jin is an open source, cross platform, graphical client for chess servers, written in Java. Jin can run either as a standalone application (available at this website) or as an applet, directly from your browser (available at the chess server's website).Currently supported servers are the Internet Chess Club and the......

13. Thief

Thief Thief is a free chess client written by Zon Jan to play on chess servers like the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS). Thief can be customized and supports regular chess and all variants like bughouse, crazyhouse, Losers, Suicide, Kriegspiel and others. It is the the preferred client of Bughouse Players.......

14. Tarrasch Chess GUI

Tarrasch Chess GUI Tarrasch is a flexible, minimalist, and easy to use chess GUI. It is ideal for playing against and training with chess engines. Tarrasch has a built in engine but can just as easily be used with other UCI engines such as Rybka or Houdini.......

15. eboard

eboard eboard is a chess interface for Unix-like systems (GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc.) based on the GTK+ GUI toolkit. It provides a chess board interface to ICS (Internet Chess Servers) like FICS and to chess engines like GNU Chess, Sjeng and Crafty.The primary purpose of eboard is serving as interface to......