30

What are some of the best sites for online chess?

Free sites with friendly communities are better.

Rewan Demontay
  • 17,514
  • 4
  • 67
  • 113
Andrew
  • 15,144
  • 4
  • 65
  • 105
  • 3
    Stack Exchange doesn't generally work well for questions that are just polling the community. The guidance is "real questions have answers, not items or ideas or opinions." That always sounds crazy to a new community, but trust me, avoiding these recommendation questions (especially early in the best) has proven itself time and time again as the core community starts to see where it all goes wrong. I urge you to read this short blog post: Real Questions Have Answers because I am running out of room here. Thanks. – Robert Cartaino May 02 '12 at 15:57
  • 1
    Agreed .but why not converting this to community wikik instead of closing? – Tachyons May 05 '12 at 15:07
  • Because community wiki does not make this question any more of a "list your favorite chess site" poll. See http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/the-future-of-community-wiki/ – Robert Cartaino May 07 '12 at 21:36
  • I like Chessfriends.com. Free to use (with some limits), nice UI, and great Android/iOS apps! – Dennis Golomazov Nov 12 '13 at 06:22
  • I was using chesscube they were the best in matching skills, but they went commercial and website is in flash , I google and found chess24.com to be have very nice UI and that they have actual grandmasters playing over there. I will give it a try for a while and see how it goes – Ismail Marmoush Apr 01 '15 at 14:21
  • This is an old thread, but wanted to leave a link to lichess.org which is totally free, with no adverts and has extraordinary features for learning and analyzing games. It has great mobile apps, and works great in the browser too. – Billy Moon Oct 16 '17 at 20:39

5 Answers5

25

Chess.com has become a hot spot, with live and correspondence chess, along with tactical problems, articles, etc. The live chess is OK, but not the best.

ICC or playchess are the best for live chess, FICS if you want free, but it doesn't have as many titled players or features. Those sites will also have video's, live commentary of top level tournaments, and much more.

Bort
  • 1,577
  • 10
  • 15
  • 3
    I've used all these options, and I've found chess.com to have the friendliest community, and FICS by far the worst. – JaredDef May 01 '12 at 22:15
  • 3
    I've been a member of FICS, on and off, since 1996. I've found both to be friendly with a few extreme exceptions. As for community, FICS can't be beat with it's chat channels on everything from math, movies, etc... – Rex Butler May 02 '12 at 02:16
  • 3
    I don't like the ads on chess.com - also, their free memberships are VERY limited. –  May 02 '12 at 07:25
  • @Sean: I have AdBlock. – Daniel May 04 '12 at 13:17
  • Agree with the live chess part on chess.com, it needs to be improved even now. – m4n0 May 12 '15 at 16:35
  • 1
    Recently a new hotspot for live chess has arisen at lichess.org, and most chess streamers on Twitch (e.g. penguingim, KingsCrusher) usually use that site now. – TMM Jun 07 '17 at 23:04
11

If you would like to play a lot of quick games, I would recommend FICS, or the Free Internet Chess Server. Using a good interface like BabasChess or Winboard, it's response time is a lot crisper. It has a long history with a lot of "culture", off-topic chat channels, 'bots', and a lot more master level players that some of the other sites.

Chess.com is also a good option.

Rex Butler
  • 561
  • 3
  • 10
10

ChessCube

ChessCube has one of the nicest user interfaces, although it cannot be used with iPhone or iPads since it uses flash.

Bryan
  • 698
  • 6
  • 9
  • 1
    Agreed with you. ChessCube is pretty cool, Jerry from Chess-Network and KingsCrusher often frequent the Warzone tournaments. Also, ChessCube is now the number 1 chess tournaments site online - with over 400 tournaments per day.

    There are chat rooms, chess learning and mastering chess videos, and a great community.

     –  May 02 '12 at 07:15
  • ChessCube feels like playing in a very different world. Liked it, but doesn't give a classical feel. – m4n0 May 12 '15 at 16:36
9

Chess.com is very popular and free. It also has a Facebook app that you can use to play. You can also play with a time limit of days/weeks and this is very useful if you rarely can find the time to sit down and have a serious game straight.

Glorfindel
  • 24,825
  • 6
  • 68
  • 114
Marsellus Wallace
  • 573
  • 5
  • 10
6

Red Hot Pawn has a great chess community and is available for free, or with a paid subscription.

James Tomasino
  • 2,265
  • 19
  • 20