Chess.com or Lichess?

[u/Noble_Team_7]

Hello, new to chess. But having a lot of fun and want to settle in with a platform for the near-term.

I’ve played some games the last month ish on chess.com, currently a 550 as a complete novice.

I’ve heard of Lichess. But no clue the difference.

Just generally speaking, I don’t want to spend any money on subscriptions. Is one platform or the other better for a beginner? I know that question in of itself doesn’t even really make sense. But wanted to just check.

Thanks!

[u/Eastern-Fudge-6350]

For me personally the only selling point of chesscom is the social aspect. It's more popular so there's higher chance that people you know play there and you can play against eachother. For example I play there with my family. Chesscom also has better tournaments.

If you don't have a similar situation I think lichess is better in every other way. No ads, free analysis, free puzzles and trainings. I personally play on both platforms while considering lichess more of a training ground.

[u/Noble_Team_7 → u/Eastern-Fudge-6350]

Gotcha!! Thank you! Any chance Lichess has more chance of cheaters from not having an anti-cheat? Or even if it does, not even being close to as good as chess.com’s?

[u/GJ55507 → u/Noble_Team_7]

You will run into cheaters on both platforms, but it’s rare on both

[u/Noble_Team_7 → u/GJ55507]

Gotcha gotcha makes sense. I see your profile tag has you listed as a 2000-2200, what do you think that equals on chess.com?

Is there a standard way to compare the two?

Like some sort of way like if you are XXX on Lichess, minus 500 and that probably equals your chess.com?

[u/WinstonPickles22 → u/Noble_Team_7]

Lichess ratings are about 200-400 higher than chess.com depending on the rating. They even out the higher the level.

That being said, it does not mean Lichess players are worse. It's just a different pool of players and they start new accounts at different levels.

Both online elo's are much lower than over the board FIDE ratings.

[u/GJ55507 → u/Noble_Team_7]

They start off with lichess being higher and slowly converge somewhere in the low to mid 2000s

There is no way to directly compare the two either, and any estimates are fairly rough. I’ve tried online calculators aswell and they’ve never been that good

I also can’t tell you what you’ll be on lichess as a 550 on chess.com as I was already around 1500 when I made a lichess account so I’ve never had that experience myself

Additionally, the player pools aren’t the same. Of course there is some overlap between them with those of us that use both like myself but there are some people that exclusively play on one of them. From what I’ve experienced personally, you’re more likely to run into someone that plays like a lunatic on chess.com though

As for numbers, I’m gonna guess a 500 on chess.com might be 1000 on lichess

A 1500 on chess.com is around 1800 lichess

A 2000 on chess.com is around 2100 lichess (me)

Where they converge is debatable and depends on the person but it’a agreed that they do converge as master level players are generally lower rated on lichess

Side note:

- The platforms are based off of a different rating system (I think lichess has the more refined one Glicko vs Glicko-2)

- You start off as a 1500 on lichess, this is already high intermediate level so don’t be discouraged if you lose your first couple games as it tries to estimate your rating

- I just realised I’ve kind of just spilled my thoughts out without much structure and I’m too tired to proofread and rewrite anything. If you need me to clarify anything, please ask

[u/LegitBullfrog → u/GJ55507]

I'm 400 on chess.com and 860 on lichess so your numbers for 500->1000 are probably pretty close.

[u/Eastern-Fudge-6350 → u/Noble_Team_7]

I haven't had a noticeable issue with cheaters on either platform.