Your favorite chess server

[swami]

I use Chess.com, and I've never used Lichess. Why is Lichess better? I'm guessing that it was first, not better - am I right?

No, Chess.com was the first I would think. Lichess came about quite recently, in the last decade or so.
Lichess is better because it is free, open source, very smooth and flexible in game play, very fast.
Chess.com app interface is little clunky, and time management is itself laggy as the result of the feature rather than internet speed.

There's a reason Magnus Carlsen prefers to play in Lichess.

[Dariusz]

When I want to play chess online, I like it when I can chat with a player or many players I know. And sometimes I can chat with the tournament referee, exchange opinions, ask about something - just chat in a human way.

On servers such as lichess, where it's hard to have a normal tournament (according to my understanding) there are arenas - I can't do it.

Oh, I then recommend joining a lichess team and playing on team tournaments, hopefully you'll join a talkative team where members support each other, and you can chat with members of the opposing teams.

Thanks for the suggestions, maybe I'll take advantage

[Ozymandias]

Playchess sucks because many of the people there are unfriendly.

No one wants to play with me on Playchess therefore I think the people there are unfriendly.

No offence to anyone here but that's why I hate playing against strangers on the Internet and therefore always prefer to play against the computer who is always ready to play with me and is always friendly to me, even if he loses all the games.

It's unfortunate that you have such an experience with PlayChess, but I have the complete opposite.

I play on PlayChess for many years and I am, very but very satisfied.

I have many friends there, with whom I regularly play, talk and have fun in a friendly atmosphere.
It is on PlayChess that I can play freely with friendly people. Especially you can see and feel this atmosphere at tournaments, where people deserve praise - tournament directors (not bots as on most other chess servers), who are always helpful, and friendly.

It is on PlayChess is the least so called random players in comparison to other servers. I really like the dedicated software to play on this server, because it has very good protection against cheaters. Many of my friends have and had problems on other servers because of false positive detection of their games, which classified them as people supporting chess engines. Especially lichess stands out in minus in this matter.

I warmly invite you to play online on the PlayChess server. I assure you that you will meet many interesting and nice players there.

ps.
On PlayChess I play under the nickname: chessengeria or sedarpl.

I'm in the middle. There's some unfriendly people, but not much. Nothing, compared with, for example, buho21. On the other hand, I almost never talk with anyone, and even on the rare occasions that I do, I don't recall seeing them again.

I agree on the Elos. 150 over Fide ratings.

[AdminX]

For the most part on LiChess I use Zen Mode, so I don't see chat or the rating of the person I am playing. I try to stay focused on the game (Blitz 5 Min) only. I turn it off only when playing people I know.

[swami]

Wow, didn't know about Zen mode hiding the rating of the opponent. That's a wonderful feature.

[Ozymandias]

Yeah, they need to get that onto CB ASAP.

[Ovyron]

I spent years using that feature, then I learned to stop being afraid against much higher rated opponents, made it show ratings and started beating the +2100s, and that got me to some 1850 peak.

So I think it's better to learn to play while seeing opponents' ratings than hiding them, at least around these levels.