If you are an adult improver, you almost certainly already have accounts on both Lichess and Chess.com. That is the easy part. The hard part is that most of us bounce between them like browser tabs during study time, never asking the question that actually matters: which platform should you be using for each specific job?
After watching dozens of students wrestle with this from 1100 up through 1900, I have come to a conclusion that contradicts most “Lichess vs Chess.com” articles online. The answer is not that one platform is better. The answer is that they are extraordinarily different tools that excel at completely different parts of the improvement process — and using the wrong one for a given task is one of the most common quiet reasons adult improvers stall.
This audit walks through six core jobs every improving player needs done, and assigns the right tool to each. No vague “both are great!” hedging.
The Six Jobs You Actually Need a Chess Platform to Do
Before we compare features, here is the honest list of things adult improvers spend study hours on. Everything else is a distraction:
- Playing rated games at the time control that grows your rating
- Analyzing those games to find recurring mistakes
- Studying openings with spaced repetition that sticks
- Drilling tactics that match your real game weaknesses
- Studying endgames in positions you will actually reach
- Building a working notebook of personal patterns and ideas
Both platforms claim to do all six. Only one of them does each one well.
Job 1: Playing Rated Games
Verdict: Chess.com for under-1800, Lichess for 1800+
This is the only category where the larger player pool genuinely matters. Below roughly 1800 Glicko, Chess.com’s pool is deeper and the match-finding is faster, which means you complete more games per study hour. That translates directly into more analysis material.
Above 1800, however, Lichess produces noticeably tougher opposition at the same rating number because of how its rating distribution compresses. Many of my students see a 50–80 point Lichess drop relative to their Chess.com rapid rating once they cross 1900, and that gap reflects genuine difficulty, not rating inflation drama.
One important caveat: 15+10 rapid is the only time control that meaningfully improves adult players who study fewer than ten hours per week. If your platform encourages you to play 3+0 blitz instead, switch platforms.
Job 2: Analyzing Your Games
Verdict: Lichess, by a wide margin
This is the category where the gap between the two tools is largest, and it is the one most improvers get wrong. Chess.com’s “Game Review” is a marketing product. It assigns moves cute labels (“Brilliant!”, “Great move!”) and dispenses praise generously. Adult improvers consistently misread these labels as evidence that they are playing better than they are.
Lichess analysis is colder and more useful. It gives you Stockfish depth, three engine lines, a clean blunder/mistake/inaccuracy summary, and — critically — the ability to step move-by-move with full annotation tools without paywalls or animations.
If you want a deeper guide to extracting real improvement from engine output rather than just trophy moves, our piece on reading chess engine analysis like a coach walks through the exact post-game routine I give students.
Tip: Use Lichess “Learn from your mistakes” mode
This feature does not exist on Chess.com in any equivalent form. It replays every blunder and mistake from your game as a puzzle, forcing you to find the move you missed under the same emotional conditions. Twenty minutes here is worth two hours of casual review.
Job 3: Studying Openings
Verdict: Lichess Studies for building, Chess.com for drilling
Lichess Studies are the single most underused tool in adult chess improvement. They give you free, unlimited PGN notebooks with chapters, branching variations, annotations, and the ability to embed engine analysis right inside the position. You can build a working repertoire that lives in your account forever, organized exactly the way your brain remembers it.
Chess.com’s opening book is broader and prettier, but it does not let you build anything. You can browse community lines, but the structure belongs to the platform, not to you.
The right workflow: build the repertoire in Lichess Studies, then drill it using Chess.com’s opening trainer or Chessable. If you have not yet picked a starting repertoire, our rating-based opening repertoire blueprint covers how to scope this without burning twenty study hours on theory you cannot remember.
Job 4: Tactics Training
Verdict: Lichess puzzles, with one specific exception
Lichess Puzzles are tagged by theme (fork, pin, discovered attack, back-rank, deflection, decoy, and so on) and you can filter your training to a single theme until it sticks. This is the closest thing to deliberate practice that a free tool offers. The puzzles are also drawn from real played games, which means the positions feel like positions you actually reach.
Chess.com’s puzzles are pleasant and gamified, but the rating system rewards speed and the theme filters are weaker. Treat Chess.com Puzzle Rush and Puzzle Battle as warmup or recreation, not training.
The one exception: Chess.com’s “Custom Puzzles” feature generates puzzles directly from your own lost games. This is genuinely valuable for plateaued players and worth the membership for a few months if you are stuck.
Job 5: Endgame Training
Verdict: Lichess endgame trainer for technique, Chess.com Lessons for concepts
Lichess’s endgame practice tool lets you play out specific endgame types against Stockfish from random starting positions — Lucena, Philidor, Vančura, opposite-coloured bishops, queen vs rook. This is irreplaceable for technique. Drill the same position thirty times against a strong engine and the conversion patterns become reflexive.
Chess.com’s structured endgame Lessons are better for the concepts — when to trade pieces, when to push pawns, when to triangulate. They explain. Lichess drills.
If you are not sure which endings deserve your finite attention, our piece on the endgame hierarchy ranks the seven that produce real rating gains under 2000.
Job 6: Building a Personal Pattern Notebook
Verdict: Lichess Studies, no contest
This is the job that virtually no improver does, and it is the difference between players who plateau and players who keep climbing. Every time you encounter a pattern in your own games — a tactical motif you missed, a structural idea you want to remember, an opening trap you walked into — you need somewhere to save it. Not a folder of PGNs. A searchable, annotatable, position-aware notebook.
Lichess Studies do this for free. Make a “Personal Patterns” study, add a chapter every time you find something worth remembering, annotate the key move. Six months in, you have a curated improvement document that no course or coach could replicate, because it is built entirely on your blind spots.
The Combined Workflow I Give Adult Students
The right answer is not “use Lichess” or “use Chess.com.” It is to use them as two parts of the same study system:
Play rated 15+10 games where the pool is strongest for your rating. Analyze every loss on Lichess (paste the PGN, hit “Learn from your mistakes”). Save each interesting pattern into a personal Lichess study. Drill tactics on Lichess filtered by your weakest theme, ten minutes daily. Practice endgames on Lichess against Stockfish, one position per week until conversion is automatic. Maintain your opening repertoire as a Lichess study, drill it on Chess.com if you prefer the interface.
That workflow takes about five hours a week and beats every premium “training plan” I have seen sold to adult improvers, because it is built on tools you already have free access to.
What Each Platform Will Not Do For You
Neither platform will tell you which of these jobs is the bottleneck holding back your specific rating. That diagnosis is the work that turns hours into points. If you do not know whether your blocker is tactical pattern recognition, structural understanding, time discipline, or psychological steadiness, no amount of platform switching will fix it. Our guide to breaking the 1500 plateau walks through the three hidden skill gaps most commonly responsible.
If you want a personalized diagnosis, the free MyChessPlan archetype report takes about six minutes to complete and identifies your dominant playing style and the three skill areas most likely to unlock your next rating tier. For improvers who want the full curriculum mapped to their archetype, the $14.99 premium plan turns the diagnosis into a 30-day weekly schedule using exactly the Lichess and Chess.com tools described above.
Take the free archetype assessment →
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Lichess really completely free, or are features hidden behind a subscription?
Lichess is genuinely free, open source, and ad-free. Every feature mentioned in this article — Studies, full Stockfish analysis, the puzzle trainer, endgame practice, and “Learn from your mistakes” mode — is available without payment. The optional “Patron” tier exists purely to support the nonprofit and unlocks no features beyond a profile badge.
Should I cancel my Chess.com Diamond membership if I switch most study to Lichess?
Not necessarily. The most defensible Chess.com membership benefits for adult improvers are the unlimited tactics, the custom puzzles drawn from your own games, and the Lessons curriculum. If you use those weekly, keep it. If you are paying mostly for the rating points and the unlimited Game Review, you are likely better served putting that money toward a coaching session every couple of months.
Which platform is better for OTB tournament preparation?
Lichess, primarily because the longer time controls (30+0, 45+15, classical) have a healthier pool of serious players, and because the analysis tools let you prepare opponent-specific lines using their public game history. Chess.com is better if your tournament prep mostly means playing many fast games to keep your tactical sharpness up before the event.
Can I use both platforms without diluting my rating progress?
Yes — and you should. Rating is just a measurement; it is not the work itself. Use each platform’s rated games as feedback for the study you are doing elsewhere. Adult improvers who switch their entire study system every time their rating dips on one platform are the ones who never break through.
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