Chess.com vs Lichess vs Chessable: Which Chess App Is Right for You
Chess.com has 100 million users and the best learning content. Lichess is completely free and better for serious analysis. Chessable is the right tool for opening memorization. None of them does everything well. Here's the breakdown.
Chess.com has the most users, the best beginner content, and the most polished app experience. Lichess is completely free, open source, and has better analysis tools. Chessable is the right platform specifically for opening study. Using all three is common; using only one is a tradeoff.
Which one to start with: Chess.com for beginners, Lichess once you’re serious about analysis and free training, Chessable when openings become a priority.
Chess.com
Chess.com launched in 2005 and is the dominant chess platform by user count, well over 100 million registered accounts as of the early 2020s. The platform is freemium: basic play is free, and a paid membership ($4.99–$14.99/month depending on tier) unlocks the full lesson library, unlimited puzzles, game analysis, and the opening explorer.
What Chess.com does better than anything else:
Lessons and structured learning. The free tier includes introductory lessons organized by skill level. The paid lesson library is extensive, covering openings, tactics, endgames, and strategy with video content from titled players. If you’re a beginner and want structured guidance alongside playing, Chess.com is the right platform.
Puzzle training. Puzzle Rush (solve as many puzzles as you can in a fixed time) and the regular puzzle trainer are both well-implemented. The puzzles are from real games, organized by difficulty rating.
Play volume. Finding opponents at any time control is instant at any rating level. The matchmaking is fast and the game room experience is clean.
Community and events. Titled Tuesday (weekly high-stakes blitz event), Club events, and the platform’s integration with streaming content through personalities like Hikaru Nakamura make Chess.com the social hub of online chess.
What Chess.com does worse:
Analysis. The free analysis is capped in depth and feature. Serious post-game analysis requires the paid tier or exporting to a separate engine tool.
Cost over time. $14.99/month is $180/year. For many players, Lichess provides 80% of the value at $0.
Lichess
Lichess is a free, open-source chess platform created by Thibault Duplessis and maintained by a nonprofit. It has no ads, no premium tier, and no paywalled features. Everything is free, forever.
What Lichess does better than Chess.com:
Analysis. Lichess provides full engine analysis (Stockfish at full depth) on every completed game at no cost. You can analyze any position, generate opening trees, and export PGN files without restriction. For serious post-game study, Lichess is meaningfully better than the free tier of Chess.com.
Puzzle variety. The Lichess puzzle database is larger and includes puzzles at the full difficulty range. The puzzle trainer is excellent and fully free.
Openings database. Lichess has a comprehensive opening explorer accessible for free, covering both master games and all platform games by rating range. Useful for opening research at any level.
No commercial pressure. The platform exists to provide chess tools, not to convert you to a subscription. This changes the UI and feature prioritization in subtle but real ways.
What Lichess does worse:
Learning content. Lichess has basic video lessons but nothing approaching Chess.com’s lesson library for structured beginner-to-intermediate learning. If you need video instruction explaining chess concepts, Chess.com has more of it.
UI polish. Lichess is functional, not beautiful. The app works. It’s less intuitive than Chess.com for new users.
Chessable
Chessable (acquired by Chess.com in 2019) is not a playing platform: it’s a course platform for opening memorization. The core tool is MoveTrainer, a spaced repetition system that quizzes you on opening moves at increasing intervals until the line is in long-term memory. It’s specifically built for the problem of forgetting opening moves in games.
The platform is freemium. Many courses are free. Premium courses from grandmasters and coaches run $10–$150. The free tier gives you access to free courses (which are substantial in number) and a limited number of positions per day in paid courses.
When Chessable makes sense: when your opening preparation has reached the point where remembering specific lines is a bottleneck. Below 1400, that’s rarely the main problem. The memory failure in most club games is not “I forgot move 17 of the Najdorf”. It’s “I played into a position I’d never thought about.” Chessable fixes the first problem, not the second.
For players who want to go deeper than apps can take them, the physical books cover the thinking behind positions in ways that spaced-repetition quizzing doesn’t. See our best chess books for beginners guide, including Logical Chess: Move by Move (Chernev, Batsford) as the foundational reading at any level. See also our chess study plan for how apps fit into a complete training routine.
Practical recommendation by situation
Just starting out: Chess.com free tier. The lesson content and polished experience are better for beginners than Lichess.
Playing regularly, want free analysis: Add Lichess. Keep Chess.com for playing, use Lichess for post-game analysis without paying.
Ready to study openings seriously: Chessable, starting with free courses. Add a paid course when you identify the specific opening that’s costing you points.
Considering Chess.com premium: Worth it if you use the lesson library consistently. Not worth it just for playing or puzzles, Lichess covers both for free.
Frequently asked questions
Is Chess.com or Lichess better? Depends on what you need. Chess.com is better for beginners (lesson content, UI polish) and for playing volume. Lichess is better for analysis and is completely free. Most serious players use both.
Is Chessable free? Partly. Many courses are free and the MoveTrainer feature works on them. Premium courses require purchase. The free tier is substantial enough to evaluate whether the platform suits your study style before spending money.
What is the best chess app for beginners? Chess.com for a first experience, the interface is the most accessible and the lesson library explains concepts clearly. Once you’re playing regularly, add Lichess for free analysis.
Is online chess rating the same as FIDE rating? No. Online platform ratings are inflated relative to FIDE. A Chess.com rating of 1500 corresponds very roughly to a FIDE over-the-board rating of 1200–1300. A Lichess rating runs approximately 150–200 points higher than Chess.com. See our chess rating guide for detail.
Sources
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Sources
Further reading
- How to Actually Improve at Chess — DiscussChess guide — Which features of these platforms actually produce improvement and which are entertainment.
- Logical Chess: Move by Move — Irving Chernev, Batsford edition — ASIN verified via Open Library 2026-05-02. The book that builds the chess thinking that apps test.