A Brief History Of Lichess and Chess.com

Chess spread all over the world in the Ancient Ages, where there was Correspondence Chess played everywhere in an era where communication was rapidly improving, ideas were diffusing and culture was growing. A game between Emperor Nicephorus and the Caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rachid was played in the 9th century, and a correspondence chess game was played in 1119 by King Henry the First of England and King Louis VI of France through couriers. Venetian and Croatian Merchants often played correspondence chess through letters.

Below is the earliest recorded chess game:

But the need for faster ways to play chess eventually overtook everyone, and when the Information Age came around and everything boomed, there was a great influx of popularity around Internet Chess Servers.

Internet Chess Servers have been around for quite a long time. The first one was a grand thing, where correspondence chess could be played. Although Plato Systems were large, bulky bricks that were outdated more than a decade ago. But it was the pioneer of Chess, that began things like Daily Chess, and probably led to the development of the ICS(Internet Chess Server), and then the ICS(Internet Chess Club), and then further incarnations, with membership fees, and then with the creation of the FICS(Free Internet Server).

But, just as the ICC and the ICS were becoming big names, and as the WCN(World Chess Network) burst into view and acquired… And so on and so on, progress and boom… Chess.com burst into the scene near 2005. The domain was originally set up to sell some chess tutoring software, but the domain name was eventually bought and redeveloped.

Chess.com originally resembled Play24, the ICC, and chess24 mashed into a single green interface. But also resembled Facebook in some visual aspects. It was also called, by TechCrunch, “A Social Networking Site”… Described as one from many niche social networks, where it provides an environment to learn, contribute, play, build, chat, and share, full of profiles, blogs, friends, events, video sharing, and email… “On its way to 10,000 members”… “If you’re heavily into chess, Chess.com is worth a visit”…

It’s interesting how Chess.com marketed themselves like Reddit, and many more networking sites, due to their popularity at the time. Perhaps, it was how they marketed themselves to stand out from other internet chess servers at the time. To focus the site more on interaction and fun.

Main updates were focused on community-building and online groups. There were status updates, which are still around today, and eventually pre-moves. After two years, Chess.com began to look fully polished, professional, and new. No longer called “Beta”, they removed it from the top of the Chess.com top page, and it was never seen again… In three extremely short years, Analysis, Live Chat, then Lessons was added, and so and so on, so that it became a more fully polished work.

Around the second visual update, in 2010, Lichess appeared through Thibault Duplessis, a French Programmer who made it a completely open-source, free, non-profit organization bent on letting people play online chess for free. The interface itself stayed the same for a couple of years, but it resembled a more modern, transparent, sleek approach, rather than Chess.com, and old internet chess servers. It had no ads, free lessons, and a relatively simple way to life, although it does have similar features to Chess.com.

Now the problem is which is better? Lichess or Chess.com? Lichess has definitively slower games, but less lag, more exciting games(due to a lack of chain removes), and great UI and interface… Although it’s only my preference… Originally, Lichess resembled a more sleek ICC, but as they transitioned along with modern design, Lichess turned into an interestingly unique site. Chess.com has a slower interface, but a stronger community, with stronger clubs and team tournaments… Although it’s known that many arenas are filled with many cheaters, overall Chess.com has more competitions and a more active userbase…

There are also a variety of dynamic rating differences, Lichess has a more inflated shown rating at a beginning level, whilst Chess.com has similar ratings to USCF, although sometimes as one gets further up(not to SuperGM level, but at a 2000 level), the rating becomes extremely inflated. Lichess has everything,( but lessons, accuracy scores, computer bots with personalities, and some more), that Chess.com has also. Although Chess.com, has some decently hard puzzles, like the one below:

Lichess’s puzzle database is extremely different compared to Chess.com’s. In fact, Lichess has some more difficult puzzles, a puzzle rating on Lichess could be 1900, but a Chess.com Puzzle Rating could be 2600.

Overall though, both Chess.com and Lichess are polar opposites. Lichess is non-profit, relying on donations, while Chess.com is for-profit, these two small differences, affect a larger order of operations between both.