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chess .com vs lichess

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prplt

only things that are better on lichess are the database and studies (and the fact that everything is free)... otherwise their UI is horrible compared to chess.com

Lord_Refa
whiteknight1968 wrote:

"The pool is about 1/2 the size of chess.com"

Lichess classical pool is well under 20,000

So maybe 1000th the size

Of course this is rubbish

Lord_Refa
basketstorm wrote:

Just another, less neutral ChatGPT Comparison: Lichess vs Chess.com

  • Design: Lichess has a minimalist design, while Chess.com offers a more polished and professional look.
  • Business model: Although Lichess promotes itself as free, it relies heavily on donations to cover maintenance costs, which are reported at ~$1400 per day. While this helps keep the platform running, it may not be enough to fully sustain operations, especially when addressing complex issues like cheating. Chess.com’s for-profit model, supported by paid memberships, provides more financial stability.
  • Player base: Chess.com has a larger, more mainstream player base, while Lichess caters to a smaller, dedicated community.
  • Cheating prevention: Effective cheating prevention requires dedicated, paid staff. Chess.com employs a visible anti-cheating team and advanced algorithms, funded by its business model. In contrast, Lichess, with its reliance on donations, may not have the resources for a full-time team. Given that their $1400 daily costs cover all site operations, it’s unlikely enough to ensure a robust anti-cheating system with dedicated professionals.
  • Features: Lichess offers free lessons and reviews, though some users find Chess.com’s paid features more comprehensive. While Lichess provides all of its tools for free, supporting the site through donations is essential for long-term sustainability. So it's not exactly "free."

I'm not convinced chess.com cheat detection is better than Lichess. To answer this scientifically we need experiments: setting up new accounts on both sites, deliberately cheating in different ways and see which site bans the most accounts. Of course such an experiment is very much against the Tos of both sites!

Cheat detection is hard, a difficult issue to deal with for both sites.

Lord_Refa

@basketstorm I think you overestimate how big chess.com is.

Lichess can draw on cheat detection software developed by the entire open source community, and is written for all kinds of games, not just chess.

A second point: servers around the world work on open source software, Linux, not commercial software. Proprietary does not mean better.

basketstorm
Lord_Refa wrote:

@basketstorm I think you overestimate how big chess.com is.

Lichess can draw on cheat detection software developed by the entire open source community, and is written for all kinds of games, not just chess.

A second point: servers around the world work on open source software, Linux, not commercial software. Proprietary does not mean better.

By free I mean cost of computing time, not cost of software.

Superplayer7472

If I had to choose one, I would choose chess.com due to the larger community and some functions that lichess doesn't have. Also chess.com ratings are a bit more realistic than lichess ratings. There are some proponents of having lichess though, such as studies. I have both to maximize my options.

David
Lord_Refa wrote:

Lichess can draw on cheat detection software developed by the entire open source community, and is written for all kinds of games, not just chess.

I'm not sure that anything that identifies cheating in other games is at all useful for detecting cheating in chess. How many people in the open source community are developing cheat detection software for chess? Are they really doing that voluntarily, for free, more effectively than someone who is being paid to do that? Not all of the Chess.com Fair Play team is involved in improving cheat detection methods - some of them would be involved in applying the methods that have been developed, for example - but if someone is doing something clever in this space in their spare time, Chess.com would be seeing it and applying it as well.

RyanZ_MD
Chess.com because lichess looks ugly, and the game review sucks. And I find it hard to go from place to place on lichess
Lordsem

I prefer the design of chess.com. What I don't like is no infinite tactics without Premium and no infinite analysis without Premium. But I can get over that and occasionally take advantage of offers, like the recent 7 days free Premium.

I find the alternative game modes on chess.com better and the designs are generally nicer, as well as the forums and the social features in general are better integrated here.

I also play on Lichess, but I don't like the look there as well as the lack of an option to play correspondence chess tournaments without separate software.

RDkhanna

cc is better for chating and variant

lc is better for playign and practising

RyanZ_MD

The lichess background is way to boring, and you can't multi premove, which ruins all the fun. The only thing I use lichess for is to play a bunch of bullet. There aren't even that much bots. And the ratings are definitely inflated, at least at my level on lichess.

insane

Lichess ratings are really inflated. I got banned for no reason for “cheating” even though I was a 1200 elo noob on lichess, all because I beat my friend with the Blackburn Shilling gambit and he reported me.

insane

Which is why i migrated to chess.com again. (Used it a couple years back.)

Lucas190580

The only reason the majority of the people are saying chess.com is because this is a chess.com forum

chess.com is scamming money out of u

like, someone on lichess coded a free game review that is for free

we get unlimited puzzles

and the lessons on chess.com are so bad

basketstorm

I've changed my mind about chess.com too. Anti-cheating here is weak and it's not like chess.com isn't doing enough, it's simply impossible to prevent. Chess.com attempts to hide it (by locking topics about cheating for example).

In general online pvp chess (both at lichess and chess.com) has failed and has no value.

RyanZ_MD
EKAFC wrote:
xirfirst wrote:

There are less things that you can do on lichess. Even on normal mode for chess.com you can do puzzlerush, 1 lesson a week and be able to see grandmasters games live. Chess.com is better

Did you even look at Lichess at all? You can watch top level games live here. You can play Puzzle Storm which is puzzle rush except it deducts time for every wrong puzzle instead of three strikes. The lessons on chess.com are ok but I do like the Sacrifice Series by Keti which I was able to use those videos and put them into a chess study here. All of it is organized and easy to share. For lessons, just watch Chess Coach Andras or Chess Geek. On top of that, Lichess studies are so much better than chess.com. You can use the database to look at Master Games, Lichess games, and any player's games to learn different openings, prepare against certain opponents, and discover common opening traps. Just check out my Semi-Slav study, Queen's Gambit study, and my 1.b3 Refutation. If you want any help with opening prep, feel free to DM with any questions.

I think lichess payed you to write this. You wrote the exact same thing on another lichess vs Chess.com forum

GoldenProGamingBurger

SHrek

radheygupta12

peoples who are saying that lichess is begging it means you guys are blind or mad cause you guys dont watching that it is totally free but chess.com takes cash from users to get analysis puzzles while its free on lichess

whiteknight1968

Lichess is better because it has a separate category for slower games, which is common sense, and chess.com doesn't which is illogical. Totally.

VishwanathanAnand12345

Lichess is slightly better than chess.com because the puzzles are free.

chess.com has variants that are fun