Chessable vs. Chessly vs. ChessTraining.app: Why We Built a Better Opening Trainer

If you are trying to improve your chess openings, you are living in a golden age of tools. Gone are the days of dusty books and physical boards. Today, we have powerful spaced-repetition systems (SRS) that promise to burn theory into our brains.

Why do we find ourselves dreading our daily reviews?

I built ChessTraining.app because I was frustrated with the "Big Three"—Chessable, Chessly, and ChessTempo. They are all excellent platforms, but they all suffer from specific friction points that kill your momentum.

Here is a breakdown of the current landscape, and how our Natural Play Learning (NPL) engine solves the biggest problem in chess training: The Flow State.

The Competitors: The Good, The Bad, and The "Grind"

1. Chessable: The Market Leader

Chessable revolutionized chess study by digitizing books. Their "MoveTrainer" is the industry standard.

The Good: Massive library of content from Super GMs.

The Problem: The "Stop-Start" Friction.

Chessable tends to fall into two traps.

Over-Interruption: In many courses, you play Move 1, and a text box pops up saying "Good job!" or repeating a comment you've read 50 times. You have to click "Next." You play Move 2. Another pop-up. It destroys your rhythm.

Context Loss: To solve this, they sometimes drop you straight into a position at Move 15 to practice a specific variation. The problem? You lose the "muscle memory" of how you got there. In a real game, you need to flow from Move 1 to Move 15 seamlessly.

2. Chessly (GothamChess): The Video Experience

Levy Rozman has built a beautiful platform focused on high-quality video instruction.

The Good: Engaging video content that makes concepts easy to digest. Great for beginners.

The Problem: Passive vs. Active.

Chessly is fantastic for learning a concept initially, but it lacks the rigorous, customizable drilling engine needed to maintain a massive repertoire over months or years. It's more of a "Course Platform" than a "Daily Training Engine."

3. ChessTempo: The Engineer's Choice

ChessTempo is legendary for its tactics database and detailed stats.

The Good: Incredible data and customization.

The Problem: UI/UX Overload.

ChessTempo is powerful, but it feels like using a spreadsheet. Setting up a repertoire requires a steep learning curve, and the interface isn't designed for a modern, frictionless mobile experience.

The Solution: Natural Play Learning (NPL)

I didn't want to just clone these platforms. I wanted to fix the Flow.

When you play a blitz game, you don't stop after every move to read a comment. You don't magically teleport to Move 12. You play from the start, relying on intuition and muscle memory.

Natural Play Learning is designed to mimic a real game, while still giving you the benefits of Spaced Repetition.

1. Uninterrupted Flow

With NPL, you always start from Move 1. But here is the twist: We don't interrupt you if you know the move.

Other Apps: Move 1 -> Pop-up -> Click Next -> Move 2 -> Pop-up.

ChessTraining.app: Move 1 -> Move 2 -> Move 3 -> Move 4 -> Move 5...

You simply play the opening. If you play the correct line, the game continues instantly. You can blitz out 15 moves of theory in seconds, exactly as you would over the board.

2. Correction on Demand

We only interrupt the flow if you get it wrong or if you reach a new position you haven't learned yet.

If you blunder on Move 6, the NPL engine pauses, shows you the correct move, displays the GM's comments/arrows, and asks you to replay it. Once you've learned it, the training wheels come off, and you go back to natural play.

3. True Muscle Memory

By forcing you to play from the start every time—but removing the friction of pop-ups—we help you build "Kinesthetic" memory. You aren't just memorizing "Knight to f3"; you are memorizing the feeling of the entire sequence.

Conclusion? Train Like You Play

If you are tired of clicking "Next" on comments you've already memorized, or feeling disoriented when an app drops you into a random middlegame position, it's time to try something new.

ChessTraining.app is built by a solo developer who loves chess just as much as you do. It's designed to respect your time, protect your wallet, and most importantly, improve your game.

CHESSTRAINING.APP