Graphical user interfaces

For offline usage of Fairy-Stockfish, download the latest release or compile it from source and use it together with one of the GUIs listed below or any other chess variant GUI that is compatible with the supported protocols. If you are unsure which version to download, use the most compatible versions for Windows or for Linux.

Overview

There are several chess variant GUIs with different strengths and weaknesses, so please check which one best suits your use case. If you want to do analysis for common chess variants, LiGround and PyChess should be good options for easy to use GUIs. If you are more interested in running engine matches, cutechess is a very good choice. For custom variants and the most feature-rich GUI you can use WinBoard/XBoard, which however is less stable than the other options. If none of these GUIs supports the variant you want to use, then you can always resort to FairyFishGUI, which by design supports all variants Fairy-Stockfish can support. Another solution is Fairyground online, which by design should support almost all variants Fairy-Stockfish can support but maybe does not have the most intuitive and polished UI.

FairyFishGUI

FairyFishGUI is a minimalistic generic GUI for Fairy-Stockfish supporting the same set of variants as Fairy-Stockfish, including user-defined variants from a variants.ini file. It is very limited in its features and design, so in case one of the other below GUIs supports a variant they likely are preferable. However, for arbitrary variants this GUI can serve as a fallback when none of the other alternatives supports a given variant.

If you want a GUI with more features like time controlled playing and similar generality in custom variants, an alternative is to use Fairyground online which is slightly less generic than this project, but should be sufficient in most cases and has a much nicer UI.

LiGround

LiGround is a modern cross-platform chess variant GUI. It supports all lichess variants, as well as all major regional variants (Xiangqi, Shogi, Janggi, Makruk). Since the project still is rather new, it is not as feature rich as the other GUIs yet. Precompiled versions for each OS can be downloaded from the releases.

Its game logic uses the Fairy-Stockfish based ffishjs library, therefore it is very well compatible with Fairy-Stockfish.

Cutechess

Cutechess supports many of the built-in variants supported by Fairy-Stockfish. It is very well suited for playing games (engine/human), but analysis functionality is very limited.

Engines can be added via Tools>Settings. Select the Engines tab, click on + and select the engine executable via the Browse dialog.

PyChess

PyChess also supports some of the variants, including Crazyhouse, Losers, Giveaway, Three-check, King of the Hill, ASEAN, Makruk, and Sittuyin.

XBoard/WinBoard

Fairy-Stockfish also supports the CECP/XBoard protocol, so it can easily be used in XBoard/WinBoard. WinBoard/XBoard is the most feature rich GUI in this list, but a bit older and less stable. On Windows, it is recommended to use an up-to-date WinBoard version.

Setup steps on Windows

1. Download the Fairy-Stockfish executable from the latest release.
2. Download WinBoard and extract the zip archive.
3. Open the Winboard folder and double click the winboard.exe.
4. Click on Engines>Edit Engine List...
5. Add one line similar to "Fairy-SF" /variant=janggi -fcp "C:\fairy-stockfish-largeboard_x86-64.exe" (adjust the path to where you put the .exe in step 1, and replace janggi by the default variant of your choice). Click on commit changes and OK.
6. Click on Engines>Load New 1st Engine... and double click on Fairy-SF.
7. The default variant you entered in step 5 should now be loaded automatically.

Troubleshooting

• If an engine-defined variant uses special moves or adjudication like, e.g., Janggi, Test Legality under Options>General... needs to be disabled or otherwise Winboard/XBoard might reject some engine moves or win claims.
• You can select other variants via File>New Variant..., or if the variant you are looking for is not in the list (as not all supported variants are displayed in the list) then you can enforce the variant by changing the default variant in the engine command from step 5 and redoing step 6. If you do this frequently, you can also copy&paste the entry in the variant list and create multiple entries for your favorite variants.

Setup steps on Linux

See this guide to compile XBoard on Linux. You can skip the --enable-zippy flag if you do not intend to use XBoard to run an engine on ICS/FICS.

Shogi GUIs (USI-compatible)

Fairy-Stockfish can be used in USI compatible GUIs to play Shogi by adding it as a USI engine. In case of problems make sure in the engine configuration that the options Protocol and UCI_Variant are set to their defaults for the USI protocol, namely usi and shogi, respectively, and that you downloaded the large-board version (fairy-stockfish-largeboard...).

Fairy-Stockfish also has basic support for byoyomi time controls that are supported by some Shogi GUIs.

Xiangqi GUIs (UCCI/UCI-compatible)

Fairy-Stockfish can be used in Xiangqi GUIs by adding it as a UCCI or UCI engine. In case of problems make sure that you downloaded the large-board version (fairy-stockfish-largeboard...), and that you are using a recent version, at least Fairy-Stockfish 13.

Janggi / 장기 GUIs

For Janggi there is a youtube video (신경망 이 장착 된 스톡 피쉬 장기 엔진 및 GUI 비교) explaining the installation process in Korean for multiple GUIs, namely LiGround, WinBoard, and Gulbi.