Six ways to train chess, side by side

By Chess Goat · Updated September 27, 2026

The question isn’t which site has the most puzzles. It’s which one finds what you keep doing wrong and makes you fix it. Here is how six options answer that, checked against each company’s own pages in September 2026.

What actually makes you better

A 2026 study followed 44,213 chess.com players and measured what they did against how fast they improved. Most of their time went into playing games, yet focused practice was about 3.6 times more efficient for learning, and not every kind of practice worked equally well (Southwick et al.). An earlier study of tournament players found serious study on your own was the strongest predictor of skill (Charness et al.).

So a bigger library doesn’t help if you drill the wrong things. What helps is knowing what you get wrong, practicing exactly that, and coming back to it until it sticks. That is how we compare the options below.

At a glance

Sources: Chess.com Help: What does each level of Premium get me?, Chessable: About MoveTrainer, Chessly, Aimchess, Lichess open database (CC0). Features and prices change; check each site before you buy.

What each one is really for

Chess.com Premium is the best place to play, and its tiers add unlimited lessons and puzzles (Gold), unlimited Game Review (Platinum), and coach explanations plus Insights (Diamond), per its help center. The free account gets one review, three puzzles and one extra lesson a day. It gives you tools. Choosing what to study is up to you.

Chessable is built for memory. Its MoveTrainer quizzes you on course lines at growing intervals, and brings a line back sooner when you get it wrong. That is the strongest way to learn an opening repertoire. It doesn’t look at your games to tell you which course you need.

Chessly is a course library from a popular YouTube teacher: 70+ courses, plus XP, achievements and leaderboards to keep you coming back (Chessly). Great if you already like how he teaches. Its homepage doesn’t mention building a plan from your games.

Aimchess is the closest to our idea: it analyzes your online games, scores six skill areas, and builds a weekly plan and puzzles from your mistakes (Aimchess). It is drills and statistics more than a taught curriculum.

Lichess is free and excellent. Its open puzzle database has over six million rated, themed puzzles (CC0 license), which is where our puzzles come from too. If money is tight, start there.

Goat Pass is our course. It reads your chess.com games, tells you in plain numbers what is costing you games, orders the lessons by that, and brings back every puzzle you miss until it sticks. It is young: Level 1 (10 lessons, for 400 to 800) is live and four more levels are being written. It does not replace playing, videos, or a coach.

How to choose

• You want to memorize an opening: Chessable.
• You learn best from a teacher you like: Chessly, or free YouTube courses.
• You want to spend nothing: Lichess puzzles and practice, plus our free Goat Card.
• You don’t know what to work on: find out from your games first, then study only that. That is what the Goat Card, the Goat Report and Goat Pass are for. What chess.com Premium doesn’t do explains the gap.

Want every move of your games checked by an engine and turned into a ranked list of what costs you rating? The Goat Report is $5, paid once. See a blitz sample and a rapid sample first.

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