New engine releases & news H1 2026

[Gabor Szots]

New engine: Revolver

Deshawn Mohan (Canada)
https://github.com/GoldenRare/Revolver

[Frank Quisinsky]

pawnocchio 1.9
https://github.com/JonathanHallstrom/pawnocchio
by Jonathan Hallström, Sweden

Grail 1.0.3
https://github.com/jorgenhanssen/grail
by Jørgen Hanssen, Norway

Viridithas 19.0.0
https://github.com/cosmobobak/viridithas/
by Cosmo Bobak, Scotland

Amira 1.8.2
https://github.com/FauziAkram/amira
by Fauzi Akram Dabat, Jordan

Raphael 2.1.0.0
https://github.com/Orbital-Web/Raphael
by Rei Meguro, Japan / USA

Rusty Rival 1.0.9
https://github.com/chris-moreton/rusty-rival
by Chris Moreton, England

THANKS to the authors, developers, programmers ...
I wish all readers a good start in 2026

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Krzysztof,

I think v3 for Windows OS.

Best
Frank

[Frank Quisinsky]

c4ke 3.0
https://github.com/citrus610/c4ke
Programmer, country = unknown for me

Leorik 3.2
https://github.com/lithander/Leorik/
by Thomas Jan, Germany

[Sylwy]

A new Romanian chess engine: Porcupine-1.0.0_x64 (NNUE) written in Rust. Author: Chiriac Theodor.

https://github.com/TheChii/Porcupine-Chess-Engine

[Sylwy]

Amira 1.8.2
https://github.com/FauziAkram/amira
by Fauzi Akram Dabat, Jordan

A nice GitHub banner (present from me and ChatGPT):

[Andres Valverde]

Caligula 3.1 released

https://sites.google.com/view/dirtychess/dirtychess

Mostly a bugfix version, 10/15 ELO improvement at long TC

[GyatsoYT]

Gyatso v1.1.0 is now available.
https://github.com/GyatsoYT/GyatsoChess/releases

Estimated strength around ~2500 Elo based on current testing, though further evaluation is appreciated.

— Gyatso

[op12no2]

Lozza 9

https://github.com/op12no2/lozza/releases/tag/9

For the first time binaries for Windows, Linux, Mac ARM and Mac x86 are included as well as the Javascript file. The binaries are bigger than your usual chess engine because they embed a Javascript runtime.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Prune 3.1.0
https://github.com/tgirolami09/Prune
by T. GIROLAMI, J. BIENVENUE, France

Publius 1.1 (a fix, date: 260109)
https://github.com/nescitus/publius
by Pawel Koziol, Poland