1. Lichess

What it is

Lichess is a chess server you open in a browser tab and start playing. It calls itself free, libre and open source, and it means all three: the code is public, the site shows no advertising and does no tracking, and its features page says plainly that every feature is free for everybody. There is no premium version waiting behind a button.

Alongside standard chess it hosts eight variants: Crazyhouse, Chess960, King of the Hill, Three-check, Antichess, Atomic, Horde and Racing Kings. One account therefore covers the classical game and its stranger relatives. If you prefer a phone, there are apps for iPhone and Android phones and tablets.

How a session goes

The front page offers three ways in: create a game in the lobby, challenge a friend, or play against the computer. Time controls run from UltraBullet, where a whole game lasts seconds, through Bullet, Blitz, Rapid and Classical, to Correspondence, where you have days for each move. Correspondence games support conditional premoves, so you can queue a reply to the move you expect and keep a slow game moving without checking it every hour.

Between games the site is closer to a library than a lobby. After a game you can request a Stockfish analysis on the server, open the analysis board, or use “Learn from your mistakes”, which takes you back to the positions where things went wrong and asks you to find something better. Studies let you build chapters of annotated positions and share them, and several people can edit one together in real time.

Puzzles come in several forms: tactical puzzles drawn from real games, plus Puzzle Streak, Puzzle Storm and Puzzle Racer for those who like a timer. The opening explorer and a seven-piece endgame tablebase are a click away from any position. For company there are Arena and Swiss tournaments, simultaneous exhibitions, teams, a forum and live broadcasts of top events.

The time it asks for

Lichess asks for exactly as much time as you give it, which is both its charm and its risk. A Bullet game is over before the kettle boils, and that is precisely why twenty of them in a row feel like nothing. Rapid and Classical games ask for a proper sitting. Correspondence turns chess into a few minutes a day spread across a week or two.

Arena tournaments deserve a little caution. They reward playing as many games as possible inside a fixed window, so they are designed to keep you in your chair until the window closes. A Swiss tournament, with a set number of rounds, has a clearer finish.

How it pays its way

Nothing is sold. Lichess presents itself as a non-profit association funded by donations. Regular donors, called Patrons, receive a small wing on their profile and nothing else; the patron page answers the obvious question directly by saying that no feature is reserved for them. There are no adverts to remove, because there are none to begin with.

The only limit we found on the features page is a daily cap on the deepest server analysis, and it applies to everyone in the same way.

Who it suits, and who it doesn’t

The balance