The comparison, as an open dataset
Everything this comparison is made of can be downloaded: the 8,232 raw scores, the grid that defines them, the weights, and the public page behind every score. We publish this comparison and we are scored in it — which is exactly why the corpus is open: rebuild the ranking with your own weights, without taking our word for it.
Services published
147
Raw scores
8,232
Free-tier surveys
83
Data as of August 30, 2026
The files
CSV files are UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, so Excel opens them without mangling accents. The JSON file holds the same content as a single document.
- chesspivot-chess-services-2026-09.jsonEverything in one document: metadata, grid, services, scores, evidence and free-tier survey.
- services.csv147 rows × 24 columnsOne row per service: identity, overall score, the eleven category scores, free-only score.
- scores.csv8,232 rows × 8 columnsOne row per service and criterion: the 0-3 score, the level it describes, and the page that establishes it.
- criteria.csv56 rows × 12 columnsThe grid: every criterion, its category, its weight, and the definition of its four levels.
- free-access.csv4,648 rows × 9 columnsWhat the free tier allows, criterion by criterion, with the quota quoted VERBATIM and its source page.
How to read these scores
Every criterion carries four levels written before any service was looked at: a score is the level a service matched, not an opinion placed on a scale.
A category score is the mean of its criteria rescaled to 0-10; the overall score is the mean of the eleven categories weighted by the published weights, which sum to 100. The “unweighted_score” column gives the plain mean, so you can measure exactly how much our weighting moves.
Only services of kind “platform” receive an overall score. An engine, a coach directory or an institution does not answer every category: scoring them overall would rank them last for not pretending to be something else.
Everything is read from public pages. A fact documented nowhere public scores 0: not demonstrated, not credited. It is the only rule that applies identically to 147 services — and it does mean the dataset measures what a service DEMONSTRATES, not everything it does.
The data dictionary
Every column is described there, along with the free-score rule, the survey dates, the honest limits of the dataset and the disclosure of our position as a scored publisher.
Read the data dictionaryLicence
The dataset is published under CC BY 4.0: free to reuse, including commercially, as long as you credit ChessPivot and link back to this page.
Read the CC BY 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0)How to cite it
ChessPivot (2026). Chess improvement services, scored on public criteria (version 2026-09) [Data set]. https://www.chesspivot.com/en/best-chess-improvement-apps/data
Think a score is wrong?
A score is not challenged with an opinion but with a URL: the service, the criterion, the public page that establishes the fact, and the date you read it. Every proposal is examined and its decision published, dated, whether or not the score changes.