Stockfish 19 is the newest version of the strongest free chess engine. People want to know three things: what Elo it has, when it came out, and how much better it is than Stockfish 18. On this page you get the real numbers from the big engine rating lists in one table, the full version history from Stockfish 14 to 19, and two real Stockfish 19 games on replay boards. You can also play Stockfish 19 free in your browser.
There is no single official "Stockfish 19 Elo". The Stockfish team does not give a rating. Independent testers run engines against each other for thousands of games and publish rating lists. Each list uses its own time control, hardware and scale, so the numbers are different. Here is what the main lists showed at the end of October 2026:
| Rating list | Stockfish version | Rating | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| CCRL Blitz (31 Oct 2026) | Stockfish 19, 8 CPU | 3803 (No. 1, 629 games) | 2 min + 1 s, Intel i7-4770K speed |
| CCRL 40/15 (30 Oct 2026) | Stockfish 18, 4 CPU | 3649 (No. 2, 1466 games) | 40 moves in 15 min; Stockfish 19 not on this list yet |
| SPCC (31 Oct 2026) | Stockfish 19 | 3905 (set as the reference, 15,000 games) | 30 min + 5 s, 1 thread, Stockfish versions only |
| SPCC (31 Oct 2026) | Stockfish 18 | 3875 (3000 games) | same test, against Stockfish 19 |
Numbers as read on 4 Nov 2026. Lists update every few days, so the exact number moves a little. Each list has its own scale: compare versions inside one list, never numbers from two lists.
Short answer: on the CCRL Blitz list Stockfish 19 (8 CPU) is rated about 3800 and is No. 1. On the slower CCRL 40/15 list, Stockfish 18 (4 CPU) is about 3650, and Stockfish 19 had not been added yet when we checked. On every list it is at or near the top. Other engines like Triumviratus, Reckless, Torch and PlentyChess are close behind, often within 10-40 points.
Want to know how these lists work? Read chess engine ratings explained.
Numbers are one thing; the way Stockfish 19 plays is another. On our channel it sacrifices a rook and a knight in a row against Torch, one of the strongest engines today. ("5000 Elo" in the title is our nickname for this level of play, not a rating-list number. The real numbers are in the table above.)
Stockfish 19 was released on 5 September 2026, seven months after Stockfish 18 (31 January 2026). It is free and open source, like every version. The main changes, from the official release post:
How does the engine think at all? See how Stockfish works.
The Stockfish team tested Stockfish 19 against Stockfish 18 on its Fishtest network: two runs of 60,000 games each, at 60 seconds + 0.6 seconds per move, from unbalanced openings.
The team sums this up as up to +44 Elo, and "more than three times as many game pairs won as lost". A game pair is the same opening played twice, once with each colour.
On SPCC (30 min + 5 s, one thread) Stockfish 19 is 30 points above Stockfish 18 (3905 vs 3875). Slower games mean more draws, so the gap is smaller.
Stockfish 18 vs 19 for you: if you use the engine to check your own games, both are far beyond any human, and both will show you the same best move in almost every position. Stockfish 19 is the better choice for engine-vs-engine matches and very deep analysis, and it is a free upgrade.
Every release since 2021, with the date and the gain the team measured against the version before it. Small gains, release after release.
| Version | Released | What the Stockfish team measured vs the version before |
|---|---|---|
| Stockfish 14 | 2 July 2021 | Wins 4 times more game pairs than it loses vs Stockfish 13 |
| Stockfish 14.1 | 28 October 2021 | About +17 Elo vs Stockfish 14 |
| Stockfish 15 | 18 April 2022 | +36 Elo vs Stockfish 14 |
| Stockfish 15.1 | 4 December 2022 | NNUE architecture version 5; wins 2 times more game pairs than it loses vs 15 |
| Stockfish 16 | 30 June 2023 | Up to +50 Elo vs Stockfish 15; UCI_Elo re-calibrated |
| Stockfish 16.1 | 24 February 2024 | Up to +27 Elo vs Stockfish 16 |
| Stockfish 17 | 6 September 2024 | Up to +46 Elo vs Stockfish 16 |
| Stockfish 17.1 | 30 March 2025 | Up to +20 Elo vs Stockfish 17 |
| Stockfish 18 | 31 January 2026 | Up to +46 Elo vs Stockfish 17; new SFNNv10 net with "threat inputs" |
| Stockfish 19 | 5 September 2026 | Up to +44 Elo vs Stockfish 18; new SFNNv16 net with pawn-pair features |
Source: the release posts on stockfishchess.org/blog. "Up to" = the best result of the team's own tests, which use unbalanced openings and fast games, so the gap in normal games is smaller.
Magnus Carlsen's best FIDE rating was 2882. A list says Stockfish is about 3800. Does that mean Stockfish is 900 points better than Magnus? Not exactly.
An Elo number only tells you how you score against the other players in the same pool. FIDE ratings come from humans playing humans. CCRL and SPCC ratings come from engines playing engines. The two pools almost never meet, so the two scales are not tied together. SPCC even simply sets Stockfish 19 at 3905 and rates the others from there.
The real gap is huge, but "3800 minus 2882" does not measure it. More on human ratings: Elo rating in chess.
The full Stockfish 19 network is big. Chess websites that run the engine inside your browser often use a lite build instead. For example, stockfish.js, now on Stockfish 19, ships a full build of about 94 MB and lite builds of about 1.6-1.7 MB. Its authors say the lite engine uses a much smaller neural network, so it is "quite a bit weaker" than the full engine, but still much stronger than any human.
Is there a Stockfish 19 Lite Elo? No rating list tests the lite build, so there is no honest number for it.
Our Analyser runs Stockfish 19 Lite in your browser by default (depth 20), and you can switch to the full Stockfish 19 for deeper checks.
Yes. Stockfish has two settings: UCI_LimitStrength (on/off) and UCI_Elo. In Stockfish 19 you can set UCI_Elo from 1320 to 3190. The engine then plays weaker on purpose and sometimes picks a worse move.
Note: this scale was fitted to engine games (Stockfish against versions of the engine Stash, on a CCRL Blitz-like scale), not to human players. So "Stockfish at 1500" is not the same as a 1500-rated club player. It is only a rough guide.
If you want to try to beat it, read how to beat Stockfish first.
Elo numbers are dry. Here is how Stockfish 19 actually wins. Both games were played by real engines in CCRL tests in September and October 2026. Evaluations in the comments are by Stockfish 18 at depth 20, unless they say Stockfish 19.
What to learn: Engines count king safety and time, not only pieces. A king stuck in the centre can be worth two knights.
Key idea: Before a sacrifice, look for the enemy piece with no squares. Here the h6 knight was the target all along.
Stronger engines are on our site too: play Berserk or play Obsidian online.
You can play Stockfish 19 free in your browser, no download and no account. For your own games, paste the PGN into the Analyser and let Stockfish 19 show your best and worst moves. More about the engine on our Stockfish page.
It depends on the list. On the CCRL Blitz list of 31 October 2026, Stockfish 19 (8 CPU) is rated 3803 and is No. 1. On SPCC it is set at 3905. No list gives a human (FIDE) rating.
On 5 September 2026. Stockfish 18 came out on 31 January 2026.
The Stockfish team measured up to +44 Elo in 60,000-game tests at a fast time control. On the slower SPCC list the gap is 30 points (3905 vs 3875).
A Stockfish 19 build with a much smaller neural network, made for web browsers. It is weaker than the full engine but still far stronger than any human. No rating list tests it, so there is no official Elo.
About 3800 on the CCRL Blitz list (3803, 31 October 2026). This is an engine-vs-engine rating, not a FIDE rating.
Yes. Turn on UCI_LimitStrength and set UCI_Elo between 1320 and 3190. That scale was fitted to engine games, so it is only a rough guide to human ratings.
Play the engine free, or let it check your own games move by move.
