Stockfish implements an advanced alpha–beta search and uses bitboards. The maximal size of its transposition table is 32 TB.

Stockfish can use up to 1024 CPU threads in multiprocessor systems.

It is derived from Glaurung, an open-source engine by Tord Romstad released in 2004. It is now being developed and maintained by the Stockfish community. The Stockfish engine was developed by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba, and Joona Kiiski. It has won all the main events in the Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC) and the Computer Chess Championship (CCC) since 2020. Its estimated Elo rating is around 3546 (CCRL 40/15). Stockfish has consistently ranked first in most of the chess engine rating lists and, as of September 2023, is the strongest CPU chess engine in the world. It can be used in chess software through the Universal Chess Interface. Stockfish is a free and open-source chess engine, available for various desktop and mobile platforms.