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Download and usage

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disservin edited this page Jul 1, 2023 · 36 revisions

Download Stockfish

Note: Stockfish is a command line program. You may want to use it in your own UCI-compatible chess GUI.

Get started

  1. First download Stockfish. There are multiple choices. Refer to the official and unofficial downloads. Stockfish itself is completely free with all its options.
  2. Next, download a GUI (Graphical User Interface) as it is needed to conveniently use Stockfish. There are multiple free and commercial GUIs available. Different GUI's have more or less advanced features, for example, an opening explorer or automatic game analysis.
  3. Now Stockfish must be made available to the GUI. Install in a Chess GUI explains how this can be done for some of them. If a different GUI is used, please read the GUI's manual.
  4. Ultimately, change the default settings of Stockfish to get the best possible analysis.

Official downloads

Latest release

https://stockfishchess.org/download/

Latest development build

  1. Navigate to our releases
  2. Expand the Assets
  3. Download your preferred binary

Choose a binary

In order of preference:

  1. BMI2
    • Intel: 4th Gen and newer (e.g. i7 4770K, i5 13600K).
    • AMD: Zen 3 and newer (e.g. Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 9 7950X).
  2. AVX2
    • AMD: Zen, Zen+ and Zen 2 (e.g. Ryzen 5 1600, Ryzen 5 3600).
  3. Modern
  4. 64-bit
  5. 32-bit

Download a Chess GUI

A chess graphical user interface allows you to interact with the engine in a user-friendly way. Popular GUIs are:

Free

Paid

Online

Note: If you don't want to download a GUI, you can also use some of the available online interfaces. Keep in mind that you might not get the latest version of Stockfish, settings might be limited and speed will be slower.

Install in a Chess GUI

Arena

  1. Engines > Install New Engine...

  2. Select and open the Stockfish executable

Nibbler

  1. Engine > Choose engine...

  2. Select and open the Stockfish executable

Lichess Local Engine

  1. Log in with Lichess

  2. Click the Install Stockfish button

  3. Go to the Lichess analysis page

    https://lichess.org/analysis

  4. Select the engine in the engine manager

Change settings

Note: Please check our FAQ guide to set the optimal settings.

Arena

  • Right click in the engine name > Configure


Nibbler

  • In the Engine section

Lichess

  • In the menu

Chess.com

  • In the settings


stockfishchess.org

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