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Comment by a13n | Hacker News Reader

Why is Lichess better than chess.com? I've used both and can't really say one is the "best".

On Lichess there is a patron system for those who can/want to pay, but every feature (deep computer analysis, lessons, etc.) are free and ad-free. Chess.com's free tier is limited in a number of ways and displays ads. (Full disclosure: I am not the primary developer but do work on the Lichess app)

Maybe this is not the right forum but my lichess app has a big where if I am watching a chess game on it, the pieces sometimes disappear or change position. It's been going on for a while but seems to game gotten worse recently. It seems to be triggered by going to the watch games tab, then switching apps and coming back.

Hmmm...I was aware of such a bug that existed until a couple months ago that was related to moves effectively being replayed twice resulting in nonsense positions but thought it was fixed. Are you running the latest version of the app? If so, can you try to derive a set of reproducible steps to cause the bug and submit an issue at github.com/veloce/Lichobile? I'd love to irradicate these sorts of bugs.

I really wish I could customize Lichess to have an aesthetic similar to Chess.com chessboard/pieces. I prefer Lichess, but what I have found with Chess.com's aesthetic it sounds and looks similar to an old classic board but not in a super cheesy way whereas the iconography used on Lichess feel very stockish.

The Lichess mobile app, at least, has themes that can make it as ugly as Chess.com, if that's what you're after. :)

On the desktop you can, I used Greasemonkey to completely customize the appearance and use the pieces from Fritz when I used it a while back.

Don't know if it'll still work but it did a year ago and it's a starting point.

https://kopy.io/gZy5n

Lichess is great for casual player but for more serious play chess.com is preferable because of stronger competition.

For serious play i'd say it is chess.com, playchess.com(Chessbase parent), ICC and only then Lichess.

In some UI aspects Lichess does feel nicer and lighter.

That's just the nature of the open-source model, the money is sorely lacking for promoting chess professionally.

Maybe some day the Patreon model will transfer to attracting top GMs to Lichess but for now they might check out Lichess and then leave immediately such as was the case with Wesley So earlier this year.

By comparison chess.com has the money to attract strong titled players to its online tournaments and even sponsor strong over the board tournaments such as the recent Isle of Man super Swiss.

in what fantasy world is chess.com more "serious" than the ICC? the one where attracting a couple super GMs to play promotional tournaments is more "serious" than having thousands of titled players online? not to mention the superior autopairing system.

serious: ICC, for the competition. casual: lichess, for the dramatically superior UI and value than any other site edit: the personal analytics alone make lichess superior to chess.com and other long time inferior sites like chesscube.

playchess and chess.com are relics, though chess.com survives on promos and articles and such.

Why do you think chess.com is a relic? It seems to be doing better than ever.

You might be right that ICC is more serious but chess.com has been making great strides in providing nifty web and online apps.

chess.com sponsors online and regular OTB tourneys like the recent Isle of Man super Swiss, not sure what ICC does.

I feel that ICC is the one that is a relic from 1990s.

In all fairness I had not played on ICC in 10 years ever since they tried to blackmail me in ordering a membership lest my 10 years of tens of thousands of stored games on them would vanish. (I started on ICC when Sleator split/took the code from original ICS in mid 1990s).

I just checked ICC online presence and played a few games as a guest, there was 1 GM and one IM online.

Even lichess has more titled players than that.

My bias is that chess.com offered me a full membership as a lowly FM while ICC didn't offer anything but blackmail.

Again, I could be wrong, but the impression to me is that ICC is still sleeping on its laurels from late 1990s.

Another note is that all the other chess sites (lichess, chess.com, playchess) have a notably more international feel.

> Why is Lichess better than chess.com?

Mostly because Lichess is written in Scala[1], but the engine probably helps a bit too ;-)

Love the tagline, "lichess.org: the forever free, adless and open source chess server"

[1] https://github.com/ornicar/lila

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