Some people will always disagree, but it's been my experience that when people try both sites, most people end up preferring Lichess. Certainly when comparing lichess to Chess.com's free tier, there simply is no contest.
When people say the opposite, it seems to always be people who have been chess.com customers for years, suggesting a possible post-purchase rationalisation
It could be also said, those who tend to talk up lichess don't tend to have much experience using the paid features, so overall tricky to analyse these comments. As often it's the free versions being compared. With com users extolling the paid features, and lichess users extolling their free features.
As someone who had diamond membership on Chess.com for several years(cancelled when my card was accidentally overcharged, triggering an alert with my bank. Chess.com refused responsibility and eventually offered me a free month to make me go away. I refused and just went away instead). I then found lichess. I realised all the features I was paying for on chess.com were available for free, either through lichess, or youtube. St Louis chess club has a wealth of grandmaster lectures on their youtube channel, all free.
I personally prefer the chess.com lectures. But as long as we can agree to not use terms like 'lichess is objectively better' I'm happy we can disagree
I have accounts on both, started both when free, and eventually decided to pay for chess.com. I find the UX and overall experience better, particularly the analysis side, and I like the mobile app better as well. I feel pretty confident in a fair evaluation and not a post-purchase rationalization here.
I have accounts on both. I think the chess.com video content is great, the puzzle content is great, all the extra little features like puzzle rush is great… the one unfortunate thing is the ads. I pay for chess.com but when friends play it sounds pretty annoying.
There’s a lot of incidental stuff I dislike in lichess’ UI, but at the end of the day chess.com offers lots of stuff to learners (straightforward reviews, with recent game review features offering _why_ moves are good)
But hey, more power to everyone! Just tired of people going out of their way to claim that chess.com is garbage. I’m glad lichess exists and will play some games on it. But there’s a reason that chess.com has more users and it’s not just the domain name.
When people say the opposite, it seems to always be people who have been chess.com customers for years, suggesting a possible post-purchase rationalisation