Lichess vs Chess.com for visualization training

What Lichess and Chess.com each offer for chess visualization: coordinate drills, blindfold play and puzzles, what is free, and what neither site has.

Memory Chess publishes this page. It is not affiliated with Lichess or Chess.com, and every fact about them comes from their own public pages. Checked 20 October 2026.

Beginner to intermediate
3 min read
Updated 20 October 2026
By Bing Cheng

Written with AI assistance; chess positions checked by script and game facts traced to the code.

Quick answer

Both sites offer a free 30-second coordinate drill and a way to play with the pieces hidden. Lichess makes every feature free with no ads. On Chess.com the Vision trainer is free, but a free account gets 3 puzzles a day, plus the daily puzzle and limited Puzzle Rush and Puzzle Battle. We found no drill on either site that asks you to rebuild a whole position from memory.

Takeaways

Lichess's coordinate trainer has a find-the-square mode and a name-the-square mode, timed at 30 seconds or untimed.
Chess.com's Vision trainer drills coordinates, moves, or both, 30 seconds at a time.
Lichess hides the pieces with a Blindfold option in the board menu. Chess.com has Blindfold Chess as a game variant on its website.
Chess.com's paid plans start at Gold, which adds unlimited puzzles and lessons. Lichess Patron is a donation and unlocks no features.

Who this is for

Players who already use one of the two sites and want to train visualization there.
Anyone deciding whether a paid Chess.com plan is needed for this kind of training.

What each site offers

Training	Lichess	Chess.com
Coordinate drill	Coordinate trainer. Find the square that is named, or name the square that is highlighted.	Vision. Identify squares, make moves, or both.
Time per drill	30 seconds, or untimed.	30 seconds.
Reading moves	Not stated on the coordinate trainer page.	Vision's Moves mode shows a move such as Qd3.
Playing with the pieces hidden	A Blindfold option in the board menu on the puzzle page.	Blindfold Chess, a game variant in which all the pieces are invisible. Most variants are on the website only.
Rebuilding a whole position	None found on its training, practice or learn pages.	None found on its Vision, variants, membership or help pages.
Puzzles on a free account	No limit stated. Every feature is free.	3 a day, plus the daily puzzle, and one Puzzle Rush and one Puzzle Battle a day after five of each on the first day. Gold and above are unlimited.
Cost	Free for everyone. Patron is a donation that adds wings to your profile.	Free Basic account. Paid plans are Gold, Platinum, Diamond and Friends and Family, each with a 7-day trial.
Ads	None.	Every paid plan lists No Ads. The free account's ads are not stated.

Where the two sites differ

The coordinate drills are close. Both let you turn the board's coordinate labels on or off and train as White, Black or either. Lichess also lets you drill only some files and ranks, and turn the pieces on or off. Chess.com adds a Moves mode, so you practise reading notation as well as squares.

Chess.com's own help page on Vision says it may not directly help your game, though it makes learning easier. In our view the Lichess drill is similar. Both teach the map, not what the pieces are doing on it.

For hidden-piece play, Lichess puts Blindfold in the board menu of its puzzle page. A Lichess user's forum post says it is on game pages too, but no official help page states it. Chess.com lists Blindfold Chess among its variants, and its help page says only your opponent's latest move is shown.

Price is the clearest difference. Lichess says all of its features are free for all and forever. Chess.com gives Vision to free accounts but limits the rest. A free account gets 3 puzzles a day plus the daily puzzle, and one extra lesson a day. It gets Puzzle Rush and Puzzle Battle five times each on the first day, then once each a day.

What we did not find on either site

We found no drill on either site's training pages that shows you a full position, hides it and asks you to put every piece back. In our judgement, that is the step between naming squares and playing blind.

Memory Chess, which publishes this page, is a free browser trainer for that one step. It works beside either site, with no account.

6 pieces · 10 s to lookPlay 6 pieces, 10 secondsRebuilding six pieces after a ten-second look is the drill we did not find on either site.