Chess.com vs chess24 membership: Should you purchase both?

Chess.com is currently the world’s number one most popular chess website. Chess.com has more than 75 million registered users. On chess.com you will find a guaranteed opponent to play with you. Chess24 is also becoming very popular in recent years. Chess24 is a subsidiary company of Play Magnus group which is owned by none other than World Champion Magnus Carlsen. I believe chess24’s future is very bright as they are working on new strategies every month. Chess.com and chess24.com both offer memberships to the users in which user get various types of benefits which includes video lessons, tactics trainer, etc.

Chess.com is mainly focused on playing games and chess24 focuses on high-quality video lectures etc. There are also various free resources available.  If you are a beginner you can go to this website and play some games. Lichess is a completely open-source and non-profit organization. 

About chess.com

Chess.com was founded In May 2007 by Erik Allebest and Jay Severson. Currently, they have more than 75 million registered users on their website and it is the largest chess website on the internet. The key feature of chess.com is puzzle Rush and chess lessons. Also, they offer a variety of variants in chess. Chess.com also organizes various online events such as Titled Tuesday, Speed Chess Championship, World Bullet Chess Championship, POG chess Championship, and computer versus computer events. 

About chess24

Chess 24 was launched by German Grand Master Jan Gustafsson and Enrique Guzman. In March 2019 Magnus group acquired chess 24 with an undisclosed deal. In 2020 chess 24 started organizing Magnus Carlsen invitational tournament in which many top players participated. This series of tournaments was heavily successful and helped chess24 to grow very fast. 

Price comparison of both websites

Chess24 pricing

Chess 24 offers only one premium membership which costs $149. In most of cases, they offer discount codes between 30-50%

Chess.com pricing

Chess.com offers you 3 types of membership i.e. Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. You can see prices below the price chart. I always recommend you go for Platinum Membership first. If you like then you can always upgrade to diamond membership.

Membership Tier	Pricing USD	Special Pricing (INR)
Gold	$29	1099
Platinum	$49	1799
Diamond	$99	3499

How to get a chess.com membership for free?

Chess.com offers 7 days free trial. You can use all premium features and decide whether continue or not. 

How to get chess24 membership for free?

Chess24 also offers a premium membership for free for 1 month. It’s a great start to learning something new.

I have already written comparison articles which you can read from here-

• Chess24 Premium Membership: Is it really worth it? 
• Chess.com Platinum vs Diamond Membership: Which is better?
• Chess.com Membership: Gold vs Platinum Membership

Advantages of chess.com

Let’s see some of the major advantages of using chess.com. 

Puzzle rush – Puzzle Rush is one of the most popular features of the chess.com website. In puzzle Rush, there are three types which are 3 minutes puzzle rush, 5-minute puzzle rush, and survival mode in which you get unlimited time. You have to solve as many puzzles as you can in the given time.  puzzle Rush is the best to prepare before the tournament. 

1-Puzzles – Chess.com offers high-quality puzzles to its user.  I will recommend you to solve at least 5 to 10 puzzles per day without missing a single day. You can also play puzzle battles with your friend.

2-Lessons – Lessons are the most amazing and useful feature of chess.com. From lessons, you can learn a lot.  these lessons are useful for beginners to advanced players.  here are some of the best lessons which chess.com offers. 

• Every Pawn Structure Explained
• Carlsen vs. Nepomniachtchi: Their Greatest Games Analyzed
• Mating Nets
• The 10 Best Games Of The 1990s
• Play Like Alireza Firouzja

3-Drills – In drills, You get many preloaded positions. You can play that position with an engine or with your friends. I personally solved all endgame positions. It’s a very good strategy to develop your endgame. 

4-Finding a good chess coach – Chess.com helps you to list as a chess coach or to find the new one. Chess 24 still doesn’t allow this feature.

5-Blog – Blog is one of the best feature chess.com have. on the blog, you can just put an article or your doubts and you will find someone who read your blog. chess.com has 150 million organic visitors.  it’s a great start if you want to become YouTube or freelance writer or chess coach or if you want to establish your own chess Academy. 

Chess24 features

1- Banter Blitz – “Banter Blitz” is a show concept where master players take challenges from chess24 users and comment on the games in a live video stream while playing. Premium Members get a chance to play against masters. 

2-Premium arena tournaments – Recently chess24 started organizing premium chess arena tournaments. Although they don’t have a fixed schedule. In general, they organize 2-3 tournaments in a month.

3-Video Courses – This is why premium membership is totally worth money. Chess24 offers world-class video courses. Most of the video courses are created by Grandmasters and even world champions. You can check all video courses from here.

4-Premium Videos – in 2020, chess24 started to organize many elite-level chess tournaments such as champion chess tours, Julies baer challenge, etc. For Julies baer tournaments, they organized training sessions and put all live videos on chess24. This was a very nice strategy to attract strong players to purchase their memberships. In premium videos, they have coaches like Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Hou Yifan, Boris Gelfand, etc.  

5- Extra perks – As we know chess24 is a subsidiary company of the Play Magnus group, Due to this sometimes chess 24 offers exclusive videos or deals for premium members. 

Who should purchase chess24 membership?

Chess 24 mainly focuses on players who want to learn something new. That’s why they offer premium video courses and banter blitz. If you are rated between 1000 to 2000 then I will definitely recommend you to purchase chess24 Premium Membership.

Who should purchase chess.com membership?

Chess.com mainly focuses on playing perspective.  that’s why they have developed many chess variants, improved puzzle experience, etc. Let’s discuss which chess.com Membership is perfect for you.

Gold Membership– If you just started using chess.com then you should definitely purchase a Gold Membership first.  It will cost you just $29 a year. Gold Membership is best for those who use chess.com only for playing and solving puzzles.  after purchasing a Gold Membership you will see no ads on the platform

Platinum Membership–  If you are playing chess for more than one year or even you are about 2000 ratings then go for platinum membership without further thinking.  Platinum membership allows unlimited puzzle Rush, unlimited puzzles, drills, and many more features

Diamond Membership– Diamond Membership is best for those who are trying to become professional chess player or for those who are chess coach. The main feature of Diamond Membership is its video series. Otherwise, almost all features are the same!

Alternatives for chess24 and chess.com

There are several websites that offer premium content as well as free content. Here I would like to mention some of the best websites from which you will get the benefit.

Lichess –  Liches is one of the most popular chess websites. Lichess is a fully open source project. It means that you will not find any advertisement on lichess.  lt also offers multiple features and it’s one of the best websites to start as a beginner.

Youtube – On YouTube, you will find thousands of videos created by international Masters, grandmasters, and other chess players.  the only disadvantage of YouTube is that it’s very difficult to find a great video because YouTube shows results based on a number of searches and the number of likes.  there are a few great channels on YouTube from which you can learn chess.

Opening Tree –  Opening tree is another best open source chess website. On opening tree you just have to put the chess.com or lichess username of any player and you will get a complete opening repertoire.

Should you purchase both chess.com and chess24 Memberships?

I would say Yes. If you compare it with a yearly Netflix plan or any other famous online service, we never hesitate to play $20-3o per month and even we don’t get value from it. If you take both memberships then it will cost you around $150 per year which roughly translates into $12 per month. (chess.com platinum + chess24 premium membership). But the value you will get from this is limitless.