Lichess Game Review: Free, Unlimited, and Honest About the Catch
Just finished a game on Lichess. Where did it go wrong? Does Lichess even have a "game review," the thing chess.com keeps dangling in front of you? Free? Any good?
Short answer, no runaround. Yes, a Lichess game review is real, free, and genuinely one of the best free tools out there. Its computer analysis runs real Stockfish and gives you an eval graph, an accuracy score, and every Inaccuracy, Mistake, and Blunder tagged. Its "Learn from your mistakes" feature then walks you through each one and asks you to find the better move. In Lichess's own words, that part is "free for everyone," "unlimited," with "no ads." One nice detail: Stockfish's read gets cross-checked against a large database of known opening theory first, so a standard book move never gets wrongly flagged as a mistake.
What follows is the whole picture: what you actually get, how to run it, how it stacks up against chess.com and one AI coach, and the single thing Lichess still won't do, tell you, in plain words, why your move actually lost.
One boundary first, because it matters. This is about reviewing a game that's already finished. Not live help mid-game. Using an engine or a coach during a rated game is cheating, and we don't build for it. Everything here is what you do after the clock stops.
What Lichess game review gives you free
Let's give Lichess its due, because it earns it. This is a nonprofit running on donations and volunteers, and it hands you tools that other sites charge for. No ads. No signup wall to analyze. No plugin. Real Stockfish.
What the free review actually gives you (verified 2026-07-09, and yeah, re-check it, features move):
| Feature | What you get | Cost / limit |
|---|---|---|
| "Learn from your mistakes" walk-through | Steps you through each mistake, asks you to find the better move | Free, unlimited, no ads, every game |
| Computer analysis (server Stockfish) | Eval graph, accuracy %, Inaccuracy / Mistake / Blunder labels | Free, with a practical daily cap on server requests |
| Local in-browser Stockfish | Live eval, best lines, run it move by move yourself | Free, no cap |
| Import any game (PGN) | Analyze a game from anywhere, including chess.com | Free via lichess.org/paste |
| Plain-language reason your move lost | Not offered | Not available at any price |
Two honest notes on that table. First, "unlimited" is the exact word Lichess uses for the "Learn from your mistakes" walk-through, and it's true. The underlying server that runs a fresh computer analysis on request, though, has a practical daily rate cap. Push it hard and you'll eventually see a "maximum request today" message. Lichess doesn't publish an official per-day number, and we're not going to invent one. When you hit it, the local in-browser Stockfish keeps going with no cap at all.
Second, read the last row again. Lichess shows you the better move. It never tells you, in words, why yours was worse. Hold that thought.
How to get a Lichess game review, step by step
So you've got a finished game and you want the full review. This is the actual workflow, and it takes about a minute.
- Open the game, or paste its PGN. If you played it on Lichess, just open it. If it's from chess.com or anywhere else, copy the game's PGN and drop it into lichess.org/paste. Same review either way.
- Open the analysis board. Click the analysis / microscope icon on the game. This is where the engine lives.
- Request a computer analysis. Below the board, click "Request a computer analysis." Lichess runs Stockfish over the whole game and marks every Inaccuracy, Mistake, and Blunder, plus your accuracy score and the eval graph.
- Learn from your mistakes. Below the move list, click "Learn from your mistakes." Lichess replays each error. It asks you to find the better move yourself first, then reveals what Stockfish preferred.
That's it, really. Import, analyze, walk the mistakes. If the "Request a computer analysis" button stalls, you've probably hit the daily server cap. Switch on the local Stockfish toggle on the analysis board and it'll evaluate right in your browser instead, no waiting. Want the deeper version of this workflow across tools? We wrote a separate guide on how to analyze your chess games.
Lichess vs chess.com vs Chessvia game review
This is the comparison the search brought you here for. Each of these is free, or has a real free tier, and each is good at a different job. No shading in our favor, and yeah, one of them is ours. We'll flag it.
| Tool | Free? | Unlimited free? | Structured review UI? | Explains why in words? | Two-way follow-up? | Plays with you? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lichess | Yes | Yes (walk-through) | No (built via extensions) | No | No | No |
| chess.com Game Review | Yes (1/day) | No (Platinum/Diamond) | Yes | Diamond only | No | Yes (premium coach) |
| Chessvia | Yes | Free review at /analyze | Yes | Yes (plain language) | Yes (text) | Yes (/play) |
Let me translate, because a table only goes so far.
Want the best free raw engine? Lichess. Full stop. Unlimited Stockfish, best lines, eval graph, "Learn from your mistakes," all free because it's a nonprofit. We'll concede "best free raw engine" outright and not pretend otherwise. What's missing is that one-screen "Game Review" layout chess.com made famous. Players want it badly enough that they've built browser extensions just to bolt a chess.com-style review onto Lichess. Even then, none of it says why in words.
chess.com is the incumbent you might be routing around. Its Game Review is the polished one most people picture, and even a free account gets one full review a day. But the second review is a wait-till-tomorrow, and the plain-language coach explanations on every move sit behind Diamond, which runs roughly $12/mo on the annual plan. Curious how to squeeze the most out of chess.com's free tier? We covered that in how to review a chess.com game for free.
Which leaves the row that's ours. None of the above gives you a free review that explains why a move lost in plain language and then takes a follow-up question. Same gap on Lichess as on chess.com's free tier: you get the what, never the why.
The one thing Lichess won't tell you: why the move lost
This is the exact moment it bites. Lichess flags move 23 as a Blunder. It shows the eval falling off a cliff. "Learn from your mistakes" then asks you to find the better move, and eventually reveals it. Great. But why was your move bad? What did you actually miss?
Lichess doesn't say. It's not a knock on Lichess, it's just not what the tool does. It classifies the move and points at the better one. It gives no reasoning about what your move hung, what plan it abandoned, or what your opponent was threatening. Lichess's own "Learn from your mistakes" write-up shows this in its worked example: you find the better move, it confirms it, and it stops there. No plain-language why. (If you want the deeper version of that question on its own, we dug into what actually makes a move a blunder.)
So picture the difference. On Lichess you see: "Blunder. Better was g6." On a review built to explain, you'd read something closer to this:
"This dropped the game. Nf6 hits the queen on h5, sure, but f7 was only guarded by your king, and White's queen and the bishop on c4 were already lined up on it. So Qxf7 lands, and that's mate right there, since the king can't capture a defended queen and has no square to run to. g6 or Qe7 would've covered f7 before the threat ever arrived."
That's what Chessvia's free review at /analyze is built to do. You import a finished game, and instead of just grading each move, it tells you the reason in words you can read. Then, and this is the part an eval bar can't touch, you can ask a follow-up. "Why not the other rook?" It answers, on the same position.
One honest note on how that works, because we won't oversell it. The coach's read is grounded in a real engine, checked against Stockfish first, then explained, rather than made up from memory. Right every single time? No, and no honest tool is. We track how often it stays grounded instead of pretending it's flawless. Still, when the goal is understanding why a move failed, a reason in plain words beats a number you have to sit and decode yourself.
Review One of Your Games Free: See the WhyIs Lichess game review accurate and good enough?
Fair question, and the honest answer isn't a pitch. Yes, Lichess's analysis is accurate. It's real Stockfish, the same engine strength that beats every human alive, and the eval numbers and the Inaccuracy/Mistake/Blunder labels are trustworthy. For most improving players, it's genuinely good enough to find your mistakes and drill the better move. We use it ourselves.
So what's the catch, if the engine is accurate? The gap isn't accuracy. It's explanation. Lichess tells you what went wrong and shows you the fix, but not why in words. Can you look at "Blunder, better was g6" and reconstruct the reason on your own? Then Lichess is all you need, free, forever. But if the same mistake keeps coming back because the engine never spelled out the pattern, a plain-language why is what closes that loop.
And the practical footnote, since people search for it: if your Lichess game review "isn't working," it's almost always the daily server cap. The "Request a computer analysis" queue has a practical per-day limit, and once you hit it, new server requests stall. Flip on local Stockfish in the analysis board and it evaluates in your browser with no cap. Same engine, no waiting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Lichess game review free?
Yes, and it stays free. Lichess's "Learn from your mistakes" walk-through is, in its own words, "free for everyone," "unlimited," with "no ads," available on every game. Its computer analysis runs real Stockfish for free too. Lichess is an open-source nonprofit, so the whole site costs nothing. The only practical limit is a daily cap on server analysis requests, and local in-browser Stockfish has no cap at all.
Does Lichess have game review like chess.com?
Sort of, but not the same one-screen layout. Lichess gives you the same core: a full Stockfish computer analysis, an eval graph, accuracy, and Inaccuracy/Mistake/Blunder labels, plus a "Learn from your mistakes" walk-through. What it doesn't have natively is chess.com's polished "Game Review" screen, and people want that look so much they've built browser extensions to add it. Lichess's version is free and unlimited, where chess.com's is one a day on a free account.
Is Lichess analysis accurate?
Yes. Lichess runs real Stockfish, the same engine family that outclasses every human player, so the evaluations and the move labels are accurate and trustworthy. For finding your mistakes and studying the better move, it's genuinely good enough for almost any improving player. The limit isn't accuracy. It's that Lichess shows you what went wrong, not why in plain words.
How do I review a game on Lichess?
Open the finished game, or paste its PGN at lichess.org/paste if it's from somewhere else. Open the analysis board, click "Request a computer analysis" below the board, then click "Learn from your mistakes" below the moves. Lichess walks you through each mistake and asks you to find the better move. You can import a chess.com game the same way.
Does Lichess explain why my move was bad?
No. Lichess tells you a move was a Blunder and shows you the better move, but it stops there. It won't say why in words: what your move hung, what plan it missed, what your opponent threatened. That's the one gap in an otherwise excellent free tool. Chessvia's free review at /analyze is built to explain that in plain language, checked against a real engine first, and you can ask it a follow-up.
Why is my Lichess computer analysis not working?
Almost always the daily server cap. The "Request a computer analysis" feature has a practical per-day request limit, and once you've hit it you'll see a "maximum request today" style message and new requests stall. Lichess doesn't publish an exact number. The fix is the local in-browser Stockfish toggle on the analysis board, which isn't rate-limited, so you can keep evaluating with no wait.
Lichess game review is a genuinely great free tool. Real Stockfish, unlimited, no ads, no catch on the analysis itself. The only thing it leaves out is the reason: it shows you the better move, never why yours lost. Import one of your own games, find the move that dropped it, and get the why, in plain words.
Play a Game Against a Coach That Explains Your MovesFor more on how the coach reasons through a move instead of just grading it, read how Chessvia's AI coach explains the why behind every move. Free 7-day trial, no credit card required. Voice coaching is in early access.