AI coding tools have made it possible for almost anyone to build something that looks and plays like Chess.com or Lichess. That's mostly true, and I know it because I've done it. I'm a #SyiokSendiri chess fan, and I've built laser chess, real-time chess, a puzzle app, and some PGN tools. Each started as an idea, a few prompts, and a few hours.
A site like mychessdb.com, where two people can log in and play each other online, would have amazed me a year or two ago. Today it doesn't. The barrier to entry has dropped. And it has dropped a lot.
But working apps is not a complete platform, and the gap between them is significant.
What AI makes easy
- Game logic. Piece movement, castling, en passant, checkmate detection. It's well-documented and predictable, so AI handles it in seconds.
- Engine integration. Plugging in Stockfish over UCI into a web interface is routinely easy now.
- The interface. Interactive boards, drag-and-drop pieces, and clean layouts in React or Flutter are quick to generate.
- Boilerplate. Databases, user accounts, and basic APIs used to eat hours and now appear almost effortlessly with AI.
Real-time multiplayer. Two friends playing over WebSockets works fine. Thousands of concurrent games across the globe, with low latency, on the other hand, is an architecture problem. My own experience is with small hobbyist sites like mychessdb and catur dot org, where a player base under 100 is manageable. Beyond that, the problems multiply.
State synchronization. What happens when a player's connection drops for ten seconds mid-game, then returns? Clocks, pending draw offers, and move order all have to survive. In my experience, AI rarely gets this right on the first try. Multiple testing and fixing can get you there, but this is just one of many edge cases that appear as usage grows.
Cheat detection. This is the hardest problem on the list. Engine cheating is constant as well as rampant in the online world.Good detection means analyzing move accuracy and behavioral patterns on the server side, while managing false positives, appeals, and reputational damage when you ban someone wrongly. It's an arms race, not a feature you ship once. It's something anyone in the online chess world will know. Also a big problem big platforms like chess.com or LiChess have yet solved. if ever!
Ratings and game rules. Rating systems like Glicko-2 for ELO rating, time controls, abort/draw/rematch rules, and abuse reporting are all details players expect to work perfectly.
Cost and community. Millions of users mean serious cloud bills, database tuning, and caching. Tournaments, leaderboards, forums, and moderation all need ongoing human work. AI can help write the code, but it can't carry the operational load.
| Feature | Difficulty with AI | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Chess rules and logic | Very easy | Structured, predictable, well-documented |
| Stockfish bot | Very easy | Standard UCI protocol |
| Board interface | Easy | Common front-end patterns |
| Real-time multiplayer | Moderate to hard | Easy to demo, hard to make reliable at scale |
| Anti-cheating | Very hard | Needs data science and constant iteration |
| Scale and community | Very hard | Infrastructure, money, moderation, and time |
So is anyone trying?
Yes. One example is Hans Niemann's Endgame.ai. it has raised USD 4.8 million in seed funding from venture capital firms and angel investors, with plans for a Series A.
What caught my attention was the product. The interface didn't have the generic look I associate with vibe-coded apps like the ones I make with Gemini, or like mychessdb, which was built with OpenAI. It felt faster, more polished, and more feature-rich. That's just my impression, but it suggests a lot of design and planning went into it.
I should be fair, though. Funding and polish aren't proof of success, and the platform is still new with a small user base. The questions that matter are the ones above: can it attract enough players to keep matchmaking fast, and can it keep cheaters out as it grows? I don't know yet, and I'd be skeptical of anyone who says they do.
Disclosure: I run my own chess sites like catur.org. mychessdb.com is run by a Shin Azwan - a friend. I have no affiliation with endgame.ai
Bottom line.
AI has democratized chess software. One developer can now build a good-looking multiplayer chess site over a weekend, which used to take months. Turning that into a platform that can challenge Chess.com or Lichess still takes engineering depth, anti-cheat expertise, serious money, and most of all, players.
Still, it's an exciting time. If more serious projects like Endgame.ai show up, Chess.com and Lichess may finally have real competition. Try it yourself and tell me whether you agree.
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