Alternatives to Lichess

Free, open-source chess. Forever. If that's not for you - or you want to try something different - here are apps that overlap on features and use cases.

Nobody leaves Lichess over price or ads - it has neither. It is free, open-source, run by a non-profit, and nothing is locked behind the Patron donation: unlimited puzzles, Stockfish analysis, the opening explorer, Studies, and a mobile app that still plays the computer and serves puzzles with no signal. So a search for Lichess alternatives is almost never about replacing it. It is about one job Lichess does not do, or does only in raw form: a structured course from a named author, opening lines that are scheduled for review instead of re-read, an explanation of a mistake in words rather than an evaluation number, or a safe first platform for a young child. This page is organised around those four gaps. For the head-to-head with Chess.com on play, pairing pools and price, the Chess.com vs Lichess comparison already covers it.

First-line alternative

Structured learning is the most common gap. Lichess has Learn for the rules, Practice for basic checkmates and endgames, and thousands of community Studies, but no graded curriculum and no author accountable for one. For a 1200-1700 player, that leaves two paid routes. Chessable sells one-time courses by titled authors, drilled through its MoveTrainer, and a single opening course plus a free Lichess account is a complete stack. Chess.com Diamond adds a lesson library and Game Review that explains in plain English why a move failed, which Lichess's analysis board - inaccuracy, mistake and blunder labels on an engine line - does not attempt. DecodeChess does the same narrower job of turning engine output into sentences, and Aimchess aggregates many games to show which phase loses the most points.

Second option

Opening training is the second gap. A Lichess Study holds a repertoire well, but it does not ask for the moves back on a schedule, so lines learned in March are gone by May. Spaced repetition fixes that. Chessable's MoveTrainer is the best-known version; Listudy is a free, open-source trainer that builds spaced-repetition drills from a PGN; ChessAtlas schedules repertoire reviews with the FSRS algorithm and imports Lichess games to flag the move where play left the prepared line (Disclosure: ChessAtlas is built by ChessDir's editor). Kids are the third case. Lichess's kid mode switches off chat and messaging, but the site is built for adults; ChessKid is designed for 6-13 year olds, with moderated play and a parent dashboard. Offline training is rarely a reason to leave: the mobile app covers bot play and puzzles on a flight.

Verdict

Keep Lichess. For most players under 2000 it remains the best free place to play, solve puzzles and check games, and every option on this page works next to it rather than instead of it. Add exactly one tool for the gap that is actually costing games: Chessable or ChessAtlas when opening lines keep slipping, Chess.com Diamond or DecodeChess when engine numbers are not turning into understanding, Aimchess when the problem is a pattern across many games, ChessKid when the player is a young child. A player who cannot name the gap does not need a second app yet - fifteen Lichess puzzles a day and a review of every loss on the analysis board will do more than any subscription.

8 alternatives at a glance

Ordered by weighted overlap with Lichess across use cases, features and platforms - not a quality ranking.

App	Paid from	Offline mode	Platforms
Chess.com	$4.17/mo	Not listed	Web, iOS, Android
Chessveda	See review	Not listed	Web, iOS, Android
Chess King Learn	See review		Web, iOS, Android, macOS
Chess Pangolin	£2.99/mo	Not listed	Web
SparkChess	$4.99/mo	Not listed	Web, iOS, Android, Windows, macOS
Chess Tempo	$3.50/mo	Not listed	Web, iOS, Android
Chessnut Air	$249.99 one-time		iOS, Android, Windows, macOS
Chessy	$7.99/mo	Not listed	iOS, Android, macOS