Alternatives

Products that do what ChessUnlock does

Forces you to solve a chess puzzle to access your mac.

1. 1OO
   OffChess – Offline chess puzzles app▲369

   Hi HN! I'm the developer of rdx, a mildly popular ad-free, privacy and user friendly Reddit client. This time, I made something for a very specific use case: solving chess puzzles with no internet. Why? Well, my Wi-Fi is terrible in the bathroom—and that's where I do some of my best thinking. I tried printing out “mate in X” puzzles to solve offline, but they weren’t fun without interaction. So I built OffChess. OffChess is an iPhone/Android app that contains over 100,000 chess puzzles, fully offline and completely ad-free. You can solve puzzles by category (Mate in…

   2025 · offchess.com

2. 2
   Chessmate▲79

   Chess for macOS

   2020

3. 3
   TabTactics▲66

   Improve your chess passively with every new tab

   2022

4. 4
   Chess Opener▲85

   Easily explore, analyse and practice chess openings

   2021

5. 5
   Chess & Chat▲163

   A new chess puzzle to solve every day

   2022

6. 6
   Noctie▲284

   Practice chess with a genius owl

   2024

7. 7IM
   I made a screensaver that solves chess puzzles▲34

   2025 · screensaverchess.com

8. 8
   Padel Chess▲115

   Padel tactics learning app

   Feb 2026 · padelchess.me

9. 9IM
   I made a little puzzle game about a rogue chess knight▲155

   2025 · knightride.rakhim.org

10. 10
    LearnChess▲29

    Stop playing chess. Start understanding it.

    Jul 2026 · learnchess.ai

11. 11
    Chess Master▲76

    A real-time move calculator for online Chess

    2020

12. 12
    Half chess▲76

    A casual chess game where games only last 5 minutes

    2020

13. 13
    ChessBout▲12

    Multiple-choice chess duels & daily challenges ♟️

    May 2026 · chessbout.com

14. 14CE
    ChessBoss – enhancing physical chessboards with computer vision▲83

    We built ChessBoss at the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon this week. It didn’t make the top 10 but I thought Hacker News might think it’s pretty cool. https://devpost.com/software/chess-boss There are these really cool smart chessboards that can suggest moves and track your games... but they’re $400 and weigh 19 pounds. And of course there are apps that can analyze games but tracking and inputting games by hand is a huge pain. Or fully-digital chess apps... but board games are way more fun in real life! We wondered: “why can’t you just do that in software and bring the best…

    2019 · devpost.com

15. 15
    HotkeyClash▲88

    Find where your Mac keyboard shortcuts clash

    Jun 2026 · hotkeyclash.com

16. 16
    Chess DNA▲11

    Find your patterns. Fix your weaknesses

    Jun 2026 · chessdna.app

17. 17LE
    Lichess.el – Play Lichess Inside Emacs▲22

    Jan 2026 · github.com

18. 18
    Magical Chess▲14

    Free smart chess board — runs on the phone in your pocket.

    Jul 2026 · chessgaze.com

19. 19CT
    Chess-TUI Play Lichess games in your terminal (Rust)▲5

    Hi HN, I’ve released a new version of chess-tui, a Rust terminal UI for playing live games against Lichess opponents. The update includes a cleaner TUI, better performance, improved keybindings, and smoother real-time integration with the Lichess API. It’s designed as a simple, fast way to play chess without leaving the terminal. Repo:https://github.com/thomas-mauran/chess-tui Feedback and bug reports are welcome. Happy to answer questions!

    Dec 2025 · github.com

20. 20
    Chessie▲18

    Turn your chess mistake & blunders into puzzles instantly

    Jul 2026 · chessie.nxgntools.com

21. 21
    Chess Screen Time - Puzzles▲4

    Replace scrolling with an Instagram-like chess puzzle feed.

    Mar 2026 · play.google.com

22. 22PC
    Play Chess Without Moving Pieces▲36

    2017 · ba.net

23. 23
    RookTook▲8

    Compete in 2 min chess puzzles with other players.

    Nov 2025

24. 24
    Chess Masti▲1

    Democratizing High Quality Chess Education

    May 2026 · chessmasti.com

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