Roundup
The best chess opening trainers in 2026, compared
The short answer.
- For deep, authored courses: Chessable.
- For building your own repertoire: Chessbook.
- For free study with total control: Lichess studies plus Listudy.
- For learning inside the games you already play, with no set-up: ChessDummy.
We make ChessDummy, so we have an interest here. We have tried to describe every tool, ours included, by what it is actually good and bad at. Prices and limits change often, so we describe each pricing model and leave the exact numbers to each tool's own site.
How to choose an opening trainer
Three questions decide most of it.
- Where do your lines come from? An author's course, a repertoire you build, or your own games.
- How much set-up will you really do? The best trainer is the one you are still using in two months.
- Where do you want to study? A phone on the train, a separate site in the evening, or the same tab you play in.
At a glance
| Tool | Lines come from | Pricing model | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chessable | Authored courses | Free and paid courses, optional subscription | Deep theory with explanations |
| Chessbook | A repertoire you build | Free tier with a move limit, paid plan | Owning a personal repertoire |
| Lichess studies | You, or community studies | Free | Flexible, free study |
| Chess.com | Site lessons and the opening explorer | Free with limits, paid memberships | Players who want everything in one place |
| Listudy | PGN files and Lichess studies | Free | Drilling a study with repetition |
| Chess Tempo | A repertoire you build or import | Free with limits, paid memberships | Detailed, configurable training |
| ChessDummy | Your own games, checked against a built-in book | Free | Fixing openings without extra homework |
Chessable
Chessable is the largest library of opening courses, written by titled players and trained with its MoveTrainer spaced repetition system. If you want an expert to hand you a complete repertoire with the reasons behind each move, this is where to look. There are free courses to start with.
Watch out for: courses are long. Many players buy more than they finish, and a club player meets only a small share of the lines in a typical course. Read more in ChessDummy vs Chessable.
Chessbook
Chessbook helps you build your own repertoire and tells you which gap to fill next, based on what opponents at your level play most. It then drills the repertoire with spaced repetition. It is a good fit once you know what you want to play.
Watch out for: it starts empty. You need to put in time before it gives anything back. Read more in ChessDummy vs Chessbook.
Lichess studies
Lichess is free and open source, and its study feature lets you build chapters of lines with comments and arrows, share them, and use thousands of studies that other players have published. Together with the free opening explorer, which shows how often each move is played and how it scores, it is a complete opening workshop that costs nothing.
Watch out for: a study is a notebook, not a trainer. It will not bring lines back for review unless you add another tool.
Chess.com
Chess.com has opening lessons, an opening explorer and game review in the same place where many people play. If you already pay for a membership, it is worth using what is included before buying anything else.
Watch out for: free accounts have limits on several of these features, and the opening material is spread across different parts of the site.
Listudy
Listudy is a free, open-source trainer that takes a PGN file or a Lichess study and turns it into a drill with repetition. It pairs naturally with Lichess studies: write the lines in a study, train them in Listudy.
Watch out for: it is a simple tool, and you need to bring your own lines.
Chess Tempo
Chess Tempo is best known for tactics, and it also has an opening trainer with spaced repetition and a great many settings. Players who like to tune exactly how they are tested tend to like it.
Watch out for: the interface is dense and takes some time to learn.
ChessDummy
ChessDummy is our free Chrome extension for chess.com and lichess. It does not ask you to study first. It sits in a corner of your game, names the opening, marks the move that left the book, and offers to drill that line when the game ends. It needs no account, and the book is inside the extension, so lookups are instant.
Watch out for: it runs only in desktop Chrome. Its book covers common lines up to move 10, which suits players up to about 1800 and is too shallow for strong players. It checks against its own book, not a repertoire of your choosing.
Which should you pick?
- You are new to openings. Start with ChessDummy and free Lichess studies. Find out which openings your games reach before paying for anything. Our guide on how to learn chess openings shows a simple routine.
- You know what you want to play. Build it in Chessbook, or write it as a Lichess study and drill it in Listudy.
- You want an expert's repertoire. Take a Chessable course, and choose a short one first.
- You have tried courses and stopped. Use ChessDummy. It takes no extra time, because the lessons come from the games you were going to play anyway.
These tools are not rivals in practice. Plenty of players use a course or a study for the plan, and ChessDummy to see whether the plan survives a real game.