A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities
Our Software Catalogue
The items listed here are all freeware or shareware (if you decide to keep them you should pay for them). The BGA no longer hosts software, so these are all on other web sites. Also DOS programs are no longer included.
There is an increasing amount of software for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, including Igowin, SmartGo and various other tools listed below. Software for the Android platform is now also available.
Links that directly link to the software itself are labelled: *name*
The AGA's list of Go Software has some details of programs for other platforms (eg Linux). Reviews of some of these programs are in our Software Reviews section.
| Name | OS | File size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Go-playing Programs |
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| AIGO | Palm 3 | 171Kb | By Atsushi Iizuka. Shareware, $8. |
| Atari-Go | Palm | 10Kb | Plays a form of atari-Go (first capture Go) on a 10x10 board. By Tapani Raiko. Free |
| Dariush | Windows | 1.8Mb | A Go program by Frdric Boissac and Eric Marchand. It’s interface can also be used to play against a number of other Go playing programs, study joseki or solve problems. The free version available for download only plays on a 13×13 board. |
| Explorer |
Mac | 430Kb | By Martin Müller. Recommended Mac program Described here. Free since October 2001. |
| Fungo | Windows | 3.9Mb | By Yong-Goo Park. Plays well (for a program), but slowly. This is like the full commercial version of Fungo, except that you are restricted in the number of times you can play it. Free. |
| Gnugo | Mac (Classic) | 950K | By Hideyuku Fujiwara. Official website. C source available. Version 3.2 Described here. |
| Gnugo | Windows CE 3.0 | 24Kb (v1.2.0) 720Kb (v2.6.2) |
By Ivan Davtchev. Each version is available as source code, or compiled for StrongARM, MIPS, or SH3. Version 2.6.2 plays much better, but needs up to 4Mb of memory. |
| Goban | Mac OS X | 6.2Mb | Version 42. Acts as a front end for GnuGo version 3.2. Uses SGF format. Can also be used as an internet Go client. Recommended Mac OS X program. Described here. |
| Go game machine (Japanese)
Go game machine, English-language version |
Windows | 832Kb | From the Nihon Ki-in, and Tei Meikou 9p. Plays only on a 9x9 board. Reasonably strong. Very fast. Intended as an introduction to Go, particularly for children. Recommended Use is free, the Nihon Ki-in retain the copyright. |
| GoKnot | Windows | 1.3Mb | Acts as a front end for GnuGo. Also an SGF editor and internet Go client. |
| Go169 | Palm OS 5 | 37.7Kb | Go playing program from Tapani Reiko in Finland. Replaces Go81. |
| Igowin | Windows | 786Kb | Free 9*9 version of David Fotland's Many Faces of Go. Strongly recommended as the best free introduction to Go for those who have Windows. Includes an introductory tutorial about Go. Now available on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch as various varieties of Igowin. |
| Leela | Windows | ? | Lite version is free. Full version 49.99 euro. Adjustable board size. Strength 3 kyu (dan on 9x9 - tries to win by 0.5) New 2008. Recommended. |
| Many Faces of Go | Windows | - | Version 11 of David Fotland's program Version 12 now has Monte Carlo method ($89.95). |
| Minimago | Java | 156Kb | version of ImaGo by Robert Rehm Described in BGJ 98 |
| Peter's Go | Windows | 220Kb | Shareware Go-playing program by Peter Raffelsberger Version 3 is English Different board-sizes and levels of difficulty |
| SmartGo | Windows/Vista also iOS | 12Mb | Free 15 day trial, then becomes Viewer only, version 2.8 of SmartGo. By Anders Kierulf. Also available on iPhone/iPodTouch/iPad in various forms. |
| STOP | Java | Go playing program that works best under graphical interfaces such as GoGui or GoBen. By Folkert van Heusten. | |
| Turbogo | 32-bit Windows | 1.14Mb | Shareware Go-playing program by Arnoud van der Loeff. Includes an English-language tutorial. Recommended Version 5.0 (released 2000-08-20) 25 guilders |
| WinHonte | Windows | 229Kb | By Fredril Dahl. From JellyFish AS in Norway, publishers of the leading backgammon program, Jellyfish. Free for download, but not re-distributable. "WinHonte uses several different neural nets for different tasks. Some nets are trained from self-play, while others are trained from pro games. It also uses alpha-beta search to solve local well-defined problems like connectivity and life-and-death." |
| Wulu | Windows | 980Kb | 13x13 Go-playing program by Jimmy Lu (Lu Jinqiang).Recommended |
McMahon draw programs |
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| GoDraw V6 | Windows | 1Mb | The latest version of Geoff Kaniuk's program to run McMahon Tournaments. Used in most UK tournaments. Approved by the BGA If you use it, please consider a donation to the Castledine-Barnes Trust. |
| MacMahon | Windows 95 or better | 172Kb | Christoph Gerlach's program to run a McMahon draw. You must notify Christoph if you use it. |
| OpenGotha | Linux, MacOS or Windows | 3073Kb zipped | Luc Vannier's program to run a McMahon draw widely used in France and Ireland. |
Game-record viewing (and editing) programsAnother source of game-record viewing programs (SGF only) is Jan van der Steen's page. |
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| Cgoban 1 | Unix, X11 | 336Kb | An SGF viewer and editor by William M. Shubert. Supports the Go Modem Protocol. It is also a client for some Go servers. Free, includes source code. |
| Cgoban 3 | Java Virtual Machine | 6Mb | KGS client only, by William M. Shubert. It is also an SGF viewer and editor. Free, replaced cgoban2. |
| CompoGo | Windows | 865Kb | SGF viewer, editor and database. Interfaces to GnuGo and Dragon Go Server. Free. |
| Drago | Windows | 4Mb | SGF editor, problems and database interface, GnuGo client. Foreign language versions. Free. |
| Go for PalmOS | PalmOS | 14Kb | By Adorjan Kiss. An interface for playing and replaying Go on a Palm. Uses SGF format. |
| GoRilla | Windows | 561Kb | By Dariusz Stachowski. Allows you to record and review Go and other games. Uses SGF format. Version 10. Freeware |
| Go2000 | Windows | 1844Kb | By Changmei Hwung. Allows you to record games and positions, store them in a database, and index them on moves that you select. Uses SGF format. Shareware: $50 to register. |
| Goban770 | Maemo (Nokia N770/N800) |
62Kb | Can be used to record and replay games. By Jarmo Ahosola. |
| GoBoard | Psion series 3a/c/mx | 11Kb | An "intelligent go board" for 2 players by Austin Wilkinson. It supports: saving of games (own format only); indefinite undo; prevents illegal moves; replays games; automatic removal of dead stones; score counting. |
| GoGoD95 | Windows | 188Kb | A game record reader by John Fairbairn. Reads and writes SGF and Ishi format. |
| Go-Heaven | Windows | 500Kb | By Markus Stahlberg. Supports SGF and Ishi forrmats. Available in English- and German-language versions. |
| Gome | Java Mobile Phones and PDA. | 100Kb | Records and replays game records, Go library, IGS client. English, French and Japanese. version 1.0 4.95 euro (7-day free trial). |
| Gomo | Mac (old 68k machines, PPC, and OS-X). | ? | By Henk Eskes. Records and replays SGF-4 game records. Supports comments and variations. version 0.95 Freeware |
| GoSuite | Pocket Pc Smartphone |
Game recording/editing and GNUGo interface by Ashley Nathan Feniello. | |
| Hibiscus | Windows | 1088Kb | By Zjev Ambagts. Uses SGF version 4, also Ishi format. Can produce RTF diagrams. |
| Jago | Java Virtual Machine. | By Rene Grothmann. An SGF editor and internet go client. |
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| JiGo Replayer | Java Virtual Machine. | 741Kb | By Dave Jarvis. Displays SGF format games etc. Source code (java) also available from the same site. Version 2.0.82. |
| Miniban | Pocket PC | By Sebastian Helm. Record and replay Go games with a Pocket PC. Free. |
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| PalmGo | Palm 2 | 21Kb | Can be used to record and replay games. Also (formerly) known as GoBoard. Shareware: $8 |
| PilotGone | Palm Pilot | 31Kb | By Brian Brunswick. Can be used to record and replay SGF game records. version 0.7.0 Free |
| PocketGo | Pocket PC with StrongARM processor | Brian Dewey's SGF viewer and editor. You can now add/delete/edit variations and comments. Also has simple documentation in .LIT format. Free. |
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| pyWeiQi | PDA | 9k (zipped) | pdf viewer writen in Python by Pete Siedle. |
| qGo | Linux, Windows, Mac OS X | 2Mb | Written in C++, using the Qt library, by Peter Strempel and Johannes Mesa. Free. |
| Shodan | Mac OS X | Interactive study of games and problems. | |
| Smart Game Board | Mac | Uses SGF format. | |
| Smart Go | Mac | 464Kb | |
| stmgt | Atari ST | Available to members of gobase.org only. | |
| TI-Go | Texas Instruments TI-89 | 7Kb | Two programs for the TI-89. One to record games in Ishi format, the other to read them back and display them. Available in English- and German-language versions files. By Alexander Nittka |
| WinMGT | Windows | 1.09Mb | Windows version of My Go Tutor, written by Hui Huang Uses SGF format. version 0.87 $30 |
Miscellaneous |
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| Arnoud's screensaver | Windows 95/98/NT | 359Kb | by Arnoud van der Loeff, the author of TurboGo above. When your PC is not in use, it plays through professional games on the screen. If the PC is in an office, this is a way of interesting your colleagues in Go. |
| Goban Screensaver | Linux | 530Kb | Go screensaver for Linux. Free and open source. |
| GoBen | Java | Graphical interface to programs that play the game of Go and use the Go Text Protocol (GTP), such as GNU Go. Ver 0.1.1. | |
| goDummy | Unix? | Bill Shubert's user-interface to a Go-playing program. This is a complete Go-playing program, without the move-generating bit. So if you want to write your own Go-playing program for Unix, you can start with this and just write the interesting bit. It supports the Go Modem Protocol. | |
| GoGameOnline | Java phones, Symbian, Windows CE, Palm | Various problem collections for study on phones and hand held devices. Also available for Windows. | |
| GoGui | Java | 15.6Mb | Graphical interface to programs that play the game of Go and use the Go Text Protocol (GTP), such as GNU Go. GoGui has special features that are useful for Go program developers. Ver 1.1.10. |
| JText2Sgfs | any Java Virtual Machine | 4Kb | A utility to extract SGF game records from from a single text file. By Steffen Glückselig Free |
| OpenGo | Windows, or Linux/Unix | By Jeffrey Greenberg. This is the source code for a Go-playing program, but without the actual Go-playing engine. Thus, it allows a would-be writer of a Go-playing program to get on with the interesting bit, the actual move-generating engine, while OpenGo handles the tedious stuff of displaying the board on the screen, collecting the user's mouseclick for where he wants to play, supporting the Go Modem Protocol, etc. It does in fact come with a few weak move-generating engines. Version 5.0. Free. |
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| SGFsaver | Windows | 161Kb | By Francois Mizessyn. Screensaver for Windows that displays Go games. Free. |
| uliGo | Any system with Python support. | A program to practice solving Go problems. By Ulrich Goertz. Free. |
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| Gnugo 3.6 | Unix (and Mac OS X), Linux, Windows |
Current version of GnuGo for Unix, Linux and Windows, by the Free Software Foundation. Version 3.6 (much stronger than previous versions) Free, includes source code |
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Last updated Fri Apr 19 2013. If you have any comments, please email the webmaster on web-master AT britgo DOT org.