whats your favorite chess server and why?
2025-12-10 · 5 months ago · 👍 theo
8 Comments ↓
🐉 theo [mod] · Dec 10 at 18:29:
Depends on what I want to play and how. Chess dot Com is engaging. Lichess gives much more features for learning for free, game analysis. If you play tournaments like Lichess4545, then Lichess is mandatory. Chaturaji can only be played on Chess dot Com Variants. You can play some niche variants on Pychess. It depends. )
edit. Picking one, then Lichess.
🌲 Half_Elf_Monk · Dec 10 at 19:16:
I used the chess.com app for a long time, then got bored and quit. After a while I thought about starting again, but was a lot more privacy-conscious, and the chess.com app wasn't available on f-droid, so I haven't really found one. Is there a privacy-respecting server out there that works for me?
🐦 roughnecks · Dec 10 at 19:31:
Not that I have played much... but, FICS?
🐉 theo [mod] · Dec 10 at 19:35:
@Half_Elf_Monk, then Lichess is the best.
🐉 theo [mod] · Dec 10 at 19:42:
@roughnecks, when was your first game on it?
🐦 roughnecks · Dec 10 at 20:53:
I am not even sure if I played any game on FICS. I had 1 chat friend and we used to watch grandmasters games (e.g. Caruana, Carlsen and others) and we played a few time on a self-hosted (by me) chess server, whose name I don't even remember now. Think it was some brasilian software.
FICS is nice. I used to play quite a bit there using eboard. I always wanted a good TUI client, but didn't find one, and never got round to writing one.
🌲 Half_Elf_Monk · Dec 12 at 16:12:
@theo - oooh that looks promising. Didn't know that existed. Thanks!