In my opinion, Chess.com has the better UI, player base, events and like you mentioned chesskid. But on the other hand Lichess has a better anticheat, smoother gameplay/lag compensation, no ads and no features are behind a paywall. Each have their pluses but in all honesty I don't support basic features like a standard engine or puzzles to be behind a paywall. I can understand having opening/middlegame/endgame courses or library videos behind a paywall but it really makes the site a nightmare to use without a membership. I hope they continue to improve on this type of stuff since they have such a large player base.
Chess vs. Lichess
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Jan 26, 2025
0
#3
But my Chess.com has no ads, less glitchy (probably because my wifi). I have no experience in Lichess and also heard about Lichess. I usually get information from other chess players, but thanks for responding, this is my first ever Forum!
I doubt lichess has better anti-cheat, probably they just attract less cheaters because chess.com is a lot more mainstream, it attracts a lot more casual players and due to the money here a lot more of the top pros and streamers also.
chess.com is far more lucrative financially, many people buy premium and that's a lot of money - I'm not even sure the creators of lichess make money at all, probably something at this point but not a lot. chess.com therefore has a lot of money to spend on anti-cheating and have spoken lots about it. It is unimaginable to me that lichess would have objectively better anticheat without spending any money while chess.com goes to huge efforts to clamp down on it.
So while lichess may have less cheaters, chess.com must have better anti-cheat software.
L30-13 wrote:
But my Chess.com has no ads, less glitchy (probably because my wifi). I have no experience in Lichess and also heard about Lichess. I usually get information from other chess players, but thanks for responding, this is my first ever Forum!
If your chess.com connection has no ads, you are paying for that privilege.
Uhohspaghettio1 wrote:
I doubt lichess has better anti-cheat, probably they just attract less cheaters because chess.com is a lot more mainstream, it attracts a lot more casual players and due to the money here a lot more of the top pros and streamers also.
chess.com is far more lucrative financially, many people buy premium and that's a lot of money - I'm not even sure the creators of lichess make money at all, probably something at this point but not a lot. chess.com therefore has a lot of money to spend on anti-cheating and have spoken lots about it. It is unimaginable to me that lichess would have objectively better anticheat without spending any money while chess.com goes to huge efforts to clamp down on it.
So while lichess may have less cheaters, chess.com must have better anti-cheat software.
Chess.com is a for profit entity. It's goal is to make money. Lichess is a non profit entity and is completely free to use. Chess.com undoubtedly has far more cheaters than lichess as they have far more users. As far as the percentages go, I can tell you that the reason I stopped playing on chess.com and went to lichess is the number if cheaters I encountered on chess.com. I know this for a fact because I recieved rating points back when I reported those I suspected who were subsequently banned. I also recieved rating points back from games where I was unaware my opponent was cheating. At least one prominent online chess content provider has a title of his current stream called "Cheating is out of control." And he is referring to chess.com. Lastly, you know this is the case because chess.com is so sensitive about this topic. In fact, whenever, they detect forum conversations about cheating they close them down because they dont want people to know how bad it is. Chances are this thread will be blocked because of this comment and I might be censored or banned. But I dont really care. I dont play on this platform anymore.
Played cheaters every day on lichess. Never once was refunded over the course of several thousand games. You heard me right. Several thousand games not one refund. Report is useless same as here. Only difference is that CC once or twice a year gives back a couple of points.
L30-13 wrote:
But my Chess.com has no ads, less glitchy (probably because my wifi). I have no experience in Lichess and also heard about Lichess. I usually get information from other chess players, but thanks for responding, this is my first ever Forum!
Your chess.com has no ads because you're paying for premium which removes ads. How can you suggest chess.com is less glitchy if you've never played on lichess...
Knightfall081 wrote:
Played cheaters every day on lichess. Never once was refunded over the course of several thousand games. You heard me right. Several thousand games not one refund. Report is useless same as here. Only difference is that CC once or twice a year gives back a couple of points.
Then how do you know they are cheating? Every time I reported a suspected cheater on chess.com they ended up getting banned and I got points back. Every. Single. Time. I have suspected and reported FAR fewer players of cheating on lichess and again, got points back every time I reported them. If you are reporting and not getting results from either platform, perhaps you are wrongly accusing people of cheating.
Uhohspaghettio1 wrote:
I doubt lichess has better anti-cheat, probably they just attract less cheaters because chess.com is a lot more mainstream, it attracts a lot more casual players and due to the money here a lot more of the top pros and streamers also.
chess.com is far more lucrative financially, many people buy premium and that's a lot of money - I'm not even sure the creators of lichess make money at all, probably something at this point but not a lot. chess.com therefore has a lot of money to spend on anti-cheating and have spoken lots about it. It is unimaginable to me that lichess would have objectively better anticheat without spending any money while chess.com goes to huge efforts to clamp down on it.
So while lichess may have less cheaters, chess.com must have better anti-cheat software.
I don't really want to go through a whole breakdown but your argument revolved around "Chess.com makes money so their anti-cheat should be better". While that's a lovely sentiment, chess.com's main focus is money, not anti-cheat. I agree that lichess probably has less cheaters due to it being a more eclectic site, but their antic-cheat is definitely much better. We can go back and forth about if that's true or not but I've played many hours on each site and I can say lichess' report system instantly springs into action and they have much better measures to prevent streaming. Chess.com, being concerned more about player count, does not have such measures. You're extremely mistaken that lichess doesn't spend money. They're a non-profit that works off of patreons. That doesn't mean they don't spend money to work on anti-cheat. It just means they don't have any features behind a paywall. Chess.com's efforts to reduce cheaters has been extremely underwhelming. I've talked to staff about this and they refuse IP bans/hardware bans and won't implement any features such as a provisionals pool like "play/win x amount of games to unlock competitive" or any other feature that will reduce the ability for a cheater to get banned and instantly create another account. Why? Because that would take a hit to their player count and would make chess.com that slight bit less accessible and would in turn harm their cashflow. Anyways, that's my two cents. Really wish they would do more.
JustAdroit wrote:
lichess has kids mode
I think he meant a chess.com has an actual site dedicated to kids learning and kids features. Lichess kid mode just disables chat and features like that. Lichess is undoubtably less user friendly than chess.com.
Knightfall081 wrote:
Played cheaters every day on lichess. Never once was refunded over the course of several thousand games. You heard me right. Several thousand games not one refund. Report is useless same as here. Only difference is that CC once or twice a year gives back a couple of points.
Respectfully, as an 1100 on chess.com, I don't think you are facing cheaters everyday. That is absurd. If chess.com refunds you once or twice a year, there's your answer lol.
Jan 26, 2025
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#14
One thing I hate about chess kid though is that the chat during games... (those who know)/ Second of all,I have no ads and I do not have premium so what's up?
L30-13 wrote:
One thing I hate about chess kid though is that the chat during games... (those who know)/ Second of all,I have no ads and I do not have premium so what's up?
I mistakenly thought you had premium because of your flair, other than premium, having an ad blocker is probably the reason you don't have ads. Either you have an extension or your browser itself thats blocking them
Jan 26, 2025
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#17
Here is the link to the new Chess vs Lichess forum https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-or-lichess-new?page=1#last_comment
@tempetown it doesn’t take a genius to put together that your opponent is cooking rice during the game even if you go over it with stockfish after it’s over and see stockfish come alive during those sus long pauses and obvious recaptures that they took 10-12 seconds long on like recapturing a queen or the king had one legal move….but lucky you getting refunds. I play cheaters here every day but get nothing back though same as lichess. Thing is where else does a person play? There’s only really 2 sites.
Is chess.com better than Liches.org
My response is that chess.com is better because most masters are there and second, Chess.com has a bigger community than Lichess. Chess.com also has a chess.com for kids called Chess kids, can Lichess to that? (didn't think so...)