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If you are learning how the pieces move, Chess.com’s lessons and friendly bots give the gentlest ramp, and its size means beginners always find beginners. If you already know the rules and simply want games, Lichess is quicker to start and never asks for money. Run the finder and Wren will weigh it for your situation.

Yes. All six run in a mobile browser, and five of them also offer an official app. PlayOK is the exception, working through the browser alone, though it copes with small screens perfectly well. For patchy signal on a train, correspondence or daily chess is kinder than a three-minute game.

We add up our four scores, then sanity-check the total against a simple question: which tab would we open on a free evening? Lichess wins because it hands everyone every tool. The order shifts when platforms change features, and we note the date of every change on the relevant review.

Mostly, yes. The larger platforms have reporting tools, fair-play checks and options to turn off chat entirely. If you prefer a quieter board, play correspondence games, stick to puzzles, or invite people you know through a private challenge link. Our first guide has a section on keeping the board friendly.

Plenty. Board Game Arena hosts a huge licensed library of modern tabletop games alongside classics, PlayOK covers backgammon, go, draughts and card games, and Papergames.io brings battleship and connect 4 to the browser. All three are reviewed with the same four criteria as the chess platforms.

Tell us, please. Platforms update often and we would rather be corrected than quietly wrong. Write to editors@inkwellmoorgame.com with the review in question and what you saw. We replay the relevant part, fix the text and add the date of the correction at the foot of the page.