Chess replay utilities synopsis

Introduction

When I began to design my web page I was on the lookout for a pgn viewer. It should

display variations, textual annotations and NAGs (informant symbols),
support UTF 8
provide a well drawn board.

I have installed all viewers that I could find around the whole Internet and compared the features. View my blogpost on how to load the Java applets and flash videos today.

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Results

Synoptic table

Project name	View example	Input formats	Lines	Informant symbols	Text annotations	Training exercises	Autoreplay	Live broadcast	Manufacterer	Third party service	Last update	License	Language
Canvas Chess 0.1.0	view demo	PGN	yes	partially	yes	no	no	no	Ryan Cook, Yury Markushin, Patrick Horgan	no	2016	free	JavaScript
Chess Viewer Tool	view demo	PGN	no	no	yes	no	no	no	Caissa’s Web	yes	?	free	JavaScript
Chess Assistant 10	view demo	PGN, CBH, CA	yes	partially	yes	no	yes	no	Convekta	no	?	fee required (part of Chess Assistant)	JavaScript
ChessBase reader	view demo	PGN, FEN	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	Chessbase GmbH	yes	2016	free	JavaScript (jQuery)
ChessBase 12 viewer	view demo	PGN, CBH, CBF, CBONE, FEN	yes	yes	yes	no	no	no	Chessbase GmbH	yes	2013	fee required (part of ChessBase >= 12 and CB Reader 2013)	JavaScript (jQuery)
ChessBase HTML Publisher 2.0	view demo	PGN, CBH, CBF, CBONE, FEN	yes	yes, but poorly displayed	yes	no	yes	no	ChessBase GmbH	no	?	fee required (part of ChessBase 8 – ChessBase 11 and several Fritz releases)	JavaScript
Chess Tempo PGN viewer	view demo	PGN, position editor	yes	incompletely	yes	no	yes	no	Chess Tempo	yes	?	free (CC BY-NC-ND)	JavaScript
ChessTutor™ 2.7.1m1	view demo	PGN, PGZ	no	$1–$6 only	no	no	no	no	Eduardo Suastegui	no	2000	free	Java
Chess Viewer Deluxe 3.5	view demo	PGN	yes	as text	yes	yes	no	no	Nikolai Pilafov	no	2009	free	Java
DGT Chesstheatre 1.22	view demo	PGN	yes	yes, partially as text	yes	no	no	no	DGT B.V.	no	2009	free	Flash video
DHTML Chess 3.0	view demo	PGN	yes	no	yes	yes	yes	yes	Alf Magne Kalleland	no	2017	free (non-commercial), fee required (commercial)	JavaScript, PHP, MySQL
DHTML Chess 2.0	view demo	PGN	yes	yes	not parsed correctly	yes	yes	yes	Alf Magne Kalleland	no	2012	free (LGPL, non-commercial), fee required (commercial)	JavaScript, PHP, MySQL
Eitschess Live Broadcasting Chess Viewer 1.0j	view demo	PGN	as text	no	yes	no	no	yes	Felix Fürnhammer	no	2017	free (GNU Free Documentation License)	JavaScript
HTML Chess 1.0 rev. 8	view demo	PGN	no (parser error)	no (ignored)	no (parser error)	no	yes	no	Stefano Gioffré	no	2010	free	JavaScript
ICC viewer 2.1	view demo	PGN	as text	no	yes	no	no	no	Andrew Gove	yes	1999	free	Java
iChess v. 1.2	view demo	PGN	yes	no	yes	no	no	no	Gameknot	yes	2009	free	JavaScript
jsPgnViewer 0.7.1	view demo	PGN	printed as text	partially	yes	yes	no	no	Toomas Römer	no	2010	free (Apache license)	JavaScript
KnightVision Chess PGN Viewer	view demo	PGN	yes	partially	yes	no	no	no	Glenn Wilson	yes	2013	free	Flash Video
LT-PGN-VIEWER 3.4	view demo	PGN	yes	no	yes	no	yes	yes	Lutz Tautenhahn	no	2010	free (Apache license)	JavaScript
Misty Beach PGN Viewer V2.12	view demo	PGN	no	no	no	no	no	no	Misty Beach Software Organization	no	1998	free (non-commercial), fee required (commercial)	Java
Montreux Chessgame Viewer 4.37	view demo	PGN, MDF	yes	yes	yes	no	no	no	JBF Software (J. P. Hendriks)	no	2008	free (non-commercial)	Java
MyChessViewer 2.2	view demo	PGN	yes	as text	yes	yes	no	no	Michael Keating	no	2006	free	Java
Palview 4	view demo	PGN	yes	yes, but poorly displayed	yes	yes	yes	yes	Andrew Templeton, Eric Bentzen	no	2003	free	JavaScript
PGN Reader	view demo	PGN	yes	no (parsing error)	yes	yes	no	no	Kevin Coulombe	no	2007	?	Java
pgn2html 2.0	view demo	PGN	yes	incompletely	yes	yes	no	no	Werner Müller	no	2003	free (non-commercial)	JavaScript
pgn4web 3.04	view demo	PGN	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	Paolo Casaschi	no	2019	free (GPL)	JavaScript
PGNtoJS V.3.31	view demo	PGN	yes	yes	yes	no	no	no	Uwe Auerswald (†2008)	no	2002	free	JavaScript
PgnVierJS 0.9.8	view demo	PGN	yes	partially	yes	no	no	no	Markus Liebelt	no	2019	free (Apache License 2.0)	JavaScript
SCID 4.6.4	view demo	PGN	yes	partially	yes	no	no	no	SCID	no	2014	free (GPL)	JavaScript
Scid vs. PC 4.16	view demo	PGN	yes	partially	yes	no	no	no	Steven Atkinson	no	2015	free (GPL)	JavaScript
Sjkbase 1.1	view demo	PGN, EPD, FEN	printed as text	mostly printed as text	yes	no	no	no	Odd Gunnar Malin	no	1999	free	Java

The following solutions cannot be shown here for licensing reasons or lack of a download link:

Silverlight Chess by Martin Bennedik, license required
Czech by David Zechiel, license required
Alexander Gorbach
Caissa Hamm
SK Gronau (Lower Saxony). Replay function is password protected!

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And the winner is …

In older versions of this document I recommended pgn4web due to its high flexibility. The main drawback nowadays is that it is not optimized for display on mobile devices which has become very important. The only viewer that is capable of this is the ChessBase reader. So you should use it definitely. There is simply no reasonable alternative at present.

Another very ambitious project is DHTML-Chess that aims to provide a full database interface where you can input games, but at the time being it seems not fully production ready to me.

Please avoid viewers written in Java. They were necessary in the days when JavaScript was slow and little standardised. Today Java is often disabled in browsers due to security flaws and all the referring projects are abandoned for years. The same holds for Flash video based software now. Pure JavaScript viewers only are state of the art today.

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