4 ms·

Huge respect to Lichess. Open source, no ads, super clean interface and super functional website. Chess.com is a pain to use compared to it. All their finances

Huge respect to Lichess. Open source, no ads, super clean interface and super functional website. Chess.com is a pain to use compared to it. All their finances are also public: https://lichess.org/costs https://lichess.org/costs

lxgr 6mo ago
It's truly phenomenal. Even my diamond platinum extreme chess.com subscription (or however the third-best tier of a dozen or so is called) has much less functionality than Lichess's only tier.
- TheRoque 6mo ago
  True However a french chess streamer I follow had an interesting take: since Lichess is all free, all the content is computer generated, or low quality. Apparently, some content even was just stolen content from other paid platforms. His take is basically that Chess.com gives out money to many chess actors (teachers, coaches, book writers) while lichess is not helping the whole ecosystem make money. Anyways competition is good.
  - lxgr 6mo ago
    That’s fine by me: Not everything needs to be about money. > Anyways competition is good. I agree, and I have no issue with competition paid or free, but I’d have hoped that the paid one would at least also offer a better product. I’m also to pay for chess courses! Chess.com is just not worth the price to me. I like their narrated game reviews slightly better than Lichess’s purely centipawn-driven mistake practice system, but everything else about their interface is much worse.
elAhmo 6mo ago
Quite amazing to see that "French social security / pension contrib" are almost the same as their total server costs, and there is loads of them. With just a few employees, it is quite interesting to compare how much do some of these contributions cost, effectively affecting only a person or two, compared to a service like Lichess which is used by 5-10 million of users each month.
DEDLINE 6mo ago
100%. Beautiful property. Thank you, Lichess, for everything you do.
sillysaurusx 6mo ago
Their lead developer is paid $72k/yr, and mobile developer $49k/yr. I'm not sure what to think, but that's definitely interesting. I wonder what chess.com is paying their engineers.
- sebmellen 6mo ago
  Could be part time
  - sillysaurusx 6mo ago
    I thought so too, but another entry in their sheet is "Sysadmin (part time)" for $18k/yr. So either they forgot to put part time in parens, or they're paid full time wages. I wonder which...
  - static_motion 6mo ago
    Or full time. In some countries, those are pretty decent salaries. I earn €50k in one of the poorer European countries and that puts me in the top ~8%.
    - fernandopj 6mo ago
      Both would be very decent salaries in South America also
    - sebmellen 6mo ago
      Let’s talk. Email is in my bio!
- tumdum_ 6mo ago
  Can you explain what is interesting in those salaries?
  - morcus 6mo ago
    They are extremely low (at least by the standard of Software Engineers based in the US)

lxgr 6mo ago

It's truly phenomenal. Even my diamond platinum extreme chess.com subscription (or however the third-best tier of a dozen or so is called) has much less functionality than Lichess's only tier.

TheRoque 6mo ago
True However a french chess streamer I follow had an interesting take: since Lichess is all free, all the content is computer generated, or low quality. Apparently, some content even was just stolen content from other paid platforms. His take is basically that Chess.com gives out money to many chess actors (teachers, coaches, book writers) while lichess is not helping the whole ecosystem make money. Anyways competition is good.
- lxgr 6mo ago
  That’s fine by me: Not everything needs to be about money. > Anyways competition is good. I agree, and I have no issue with competition paid or free, but I’d have hoped that the paid one would at least also offer a better product. I’m also to pay for chess courses! Chess.com is just not worth the price to me. I like their narrated game reviews slightly better than Lichess’s purely centipawn-driven mistake practice system, but everything else about their interface is much worse.

elAhmo 6mo ago

Quite amazing to see that "French social security / pension contrib" are almost the same as their total server costs, and there is loads of them. With just a few employees, it is quite interesting to compare how much do some of these contributions cost, effectively affecting only a person or two, compared to a service like Lichess which is used by 5-10 million of users each month.

DEDLINE 6mo ago

100%. Beautiful property. Thank you, Lichess, for everything you do.

sillysaurusx 6mo ago

Their lead developer is paid $72k/yr, and mobile developer $49k/yr. I'm not sure what to think, but that's definitely interesting. I wonder what chess.com is paying their engineers.

sebmellen 6mo ago
Could be part time
- sillysaurusx 6mo ago
  I thought so too, but another entry in their sheet is "Sysadmin (part time)" for $18k/yr. So either they forgot to put part time in parens, or they're paid full time wages. I wonder which...
- static_motion 6mo ago
  Or full time. In some countries, those are pretty decent salaries. I earn €50k in one of the poorer European countries and that puts me in the top ~8%.
  - fernandopj 6mo ago
    Both would be very decent salaries in South America also
  - sebmellen 6mo ago
    Let’s talk. Email is in my bio!
tumdum_ 6mo ago
Can you explain what is interesting in those salaries?
- morcus 6mo ago
  They are extremely low (at least by the standard of Software Engineers based in the US)