Whenever I explain ChessEver, the same question appears: where does it fit between Chess.com and Lichess?
I used to answer this by describing those platforms as two extremes. In one post, I used the word “communist” for Lichess. I later learned that I had misread a satirical line in founder Thibault Duplessis’s GitHub biography and apologized to him. I will not keep using that label. The correction matters, but the larger question remains useful.
Chess.com and Lichess represent two very different ways to build for chess. I respect both. ChessEver should learn from both without pretending to be either one.
What Lichess proves
Lichess proves that a major chess platform can be free, open source, supported by donations and volunteers, and built around a clear commitment to its community. Its code is public. Its core features are available without advertisements or a conventional premium wall. That consistency has earned enormous trust.
ChessEver has benefited from that work. Open software lets new builders study real solutions instead of starting from nothing. More broadly, Lichess established an expectation that chess tools can be transparent and accessible.
That influenced our decision to keep the ChessEver frontend open source. The mobile and desktop clients are available through the ChessEver GitHub organization under open-source licences. Users do not have to accept a black box simply because the product is commercial.
But I do not want ChessEver to depend entirely on donations or volunteer labor. Building and maintaining reliable broadcasts, apps, databases, notifications, video integrations and support requires sustained professional work. Openness is valuable. So is a business that can pay people to keep improving the product.
What Chess.com proves
Chess.com proves that a commercial chess company can operate at enormous scale. It employs hundreds of people across engineering, content, events, support, fair play, design and partnerships. It pays players and creators, produces broadcasts, organizes events and brings new audiences into chess.
I have criticized some Chess.com decisions. That does not erase what the company has contributed. Commercial success gave it the resources to build products, acquire other chess companies, employ chess professionals and promote the game far beyond the audience chess had before.
That is the lesson I want to keep: making money and contributing to chess do not have to be opposites.
The difficult question is what happens when the two goals conflict. A company can always improve a quarterly result by reducing an event, removing an expensive program or putting another feature behind a paywall. Sometimes that is necessary. Sometimes it slowly weakens the ecosystem that made the business possible.
I want ChessEver to be judged not only by whether it becomes profitable, but also by whether its growth creates something useful for players, organizers and fans.
The missing audience is people who follow chess
The opportunity for ChessEver is not simply a price point somewhere between free and paid. It is a different primary audience.
Chess.com and Lichess are built first around playing chess. They also broadcast events, but live tournament following is one part of much larger platforms. For ChessEver, following chess is the core product.
That difference changes priorities. Someone following a tournament needs to discover the event, move quickly between boards, find a player, keep several games organized, watch available commentary when useful, and return later to positions worth studying. A fan following one event and a professional tracking future opponents may use the same broadcast in completely different ways.
Those users deserve a dedicated product rather than a broadcast page attached to a playing site.
Open source and for profit
I do not see open source and profit as mutually exclusive. We can publish client code, benefit from community scrutiny and still charge for work that requires ongoing infrastructure and development.
The boundary should be understandable. A free user should be able to follow chess meaningfully. Paid features should offer additional convenience, analysis, organization or depth—not make the basic experience deliberately unpleasant. Current features and entitlements will change, so the canonical details belong on ChessEver rather than in this essay.
A sustainable business also gives us obligations. If organizers eventually earn meaningful revenue from people following their events, some of that value should improve event conditions. If ChessEver grows because professional chess creates the content people want to watch, the professionals and organizers should benefit from that growth too.
Focus is our advantage
ChessEver is much smaller than Chess.com and Lichess. We do not have their reach, resources or history. Our advantage is focus.
Every product decision can begin with one question: does this help someone follow chess better?
That focus does not guarantee success. We still have to make the product understandable, reliable and discoverable. We have to earn trust and show people why changing an old habit is worthwhile. We have to build a business without losing the reason I started it.
I do not want to copy Chess.com’s commercial model completely. I do not want to copy Lichess’s nonprofit model completely. I want to learn from Chess.com’s ability to build a sustainable chess company, learn from Lichess’s openness and community commitment, and build the part both treat as secondary.
ChessEver’s job is simple to state and difficult to execute: become the best home for people who follow chess, and make its success useful to the chess world that gives it a reason to exist.