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lichess-org
lila
Scala2013–2026
lichess-org / lila

lila

♞ lichess.org: the forever free, adless and open source chess server ♞

Web DevelopmentSystems & InfrastructureGames & EmulationLibraries & SDKs
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
47Distinct people
48Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
19KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

♞ lichess.org: the forever free, adless and open source chess server ♞

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

lichess.org and the corresponding open source project[1] are really quite something. If you're at all interested in chess or code, I recommend following it -- their great…

csmajorfive used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 5:05:26 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year48 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2013-07-26 15:36:25 UTC to 2026-02-24 01:37:19 UTC.

024682013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20132014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 2 submissions, 2 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 0 submissions, 7 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 8 mentions; 0 submissions, 8 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC422
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC707
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC808
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
lichess.org Lila (li[chess in sca]la) is a free online chess game server focused on realtime gameplay and ease of use. It features a search engine, computer analysis distributed with fishnet, tournaments, simuls, forums, teams, tactic trainer, a mobile app, and a shared analysis board. The UI is available in more than 140 languages thanks to the community. Lichess is written in Scala 3, and relies on a modified Play 2.8 framework. scalatags is used for templating. Pure chess logic is contained in the scalachess submodule. The server is fully asynchronous, making heavy use of Scala Futures and Pekko streams. WebSocket connections are handled by a separate server that communicates using redis. Lichess talks to Stockfish deployed in an AI cluster of donated servers. It uses MongoDB to store more than 12 billion games, which are indexed by elasticsearch. HTTP requests and WebSocket connections can be proxied by nginx. The web client is written in TypeScript and snabbdom, using Sass to generate CSS. All rated games are published in a free PGN database. Browser testing done with Browserstack. Proxy detection done with IP2Proxy database. Software builds and CI/CD done with Depot. Please help us translate Lichess with Crowdin. See lichess.org/source for a list of repositories. Join us on Discord for more info. Use GitHub issues for bug reports and feature requests. Installation ./lila.sh # thin wrapper around sbt run The Wiki describes how to setup a development environment. HTTP API Feel free to use the Lichess API in your applications and websites. Supported browsers Name Version Notes Firefox 100+ Full support (recommended) Chromium / Chrome 100+ Full support Edge 100+ Full support Opera 97+ Reasonable support Safari 14+ Reasonable support Older browsers will not work. For your own sake, please upgrade. Security and performance, think about it! License Lila is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License 3 or any later version at your choice. See copying for details. Production architecture (as of July 2022) Credits See lichess.org/thanks and the contributors here: Competence development program Lichess would like to support its contributors in their competence development by covering costs of relevant training materials and activities. This is a small way to further empower contributors who have given their time to Lichess and to enable or improve additional contributions to Lichess in the future. For more information, including how to apply, check Competence Development for Lichess contributors.
Read the full README on GitHub

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