Lichess vs MTA:SA
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted game servers options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Lichess with
choose an app… Mindustry OpenRCT2 papermc-docker ArchiSteamFarm Cytopia Note - games browser alt 2048 Nakama Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead Paper Note - PaperMC server alt Spigot Unciv Prism Launcher BrowserQuest Pterodactyl AzerothCore A Dark Room OpenTTD Endless Sky Mineflayer Colyseus Agones shapez.io Battle for Wesnoth CTFd Ren'Py VCMI GeyserMC Leaf Cuberite SuperTuxKart MCSManager ink LinuxGSM untrusted Steam Headless Warzone 2100 Terasology Veloren PocketMine-MP OpenXRay Minecraft Overviewer WorldEdit Palworld Server Docker SuperTux Widelands Twine 0 A.D. Pitaya ioquake3 BlueMap Teeworlds BrowserQuest Note - mozilla-bq alt Hextris Purpur EssentialsX Valheim Server Docker Velocity Pelican Panel Freeciv-web Superpowers Cytopia PMMP Note - PocketMine alt BedrockConnect 0 A.D. Lobby Note - pyrogenesis server Pioneer OpenLoco Docker Minecraft Bedrock Server Multicraft Note - AMP free alt Pufferpanel Inform 7 Hypersomnia Freeciv Server UnknownHorizons Note - settlement game Nukkit Mineserver Note - minecraft panel alt Lodestone Colobot Note - browser game alt Hextris-no OpenSpades EasyRPG Player AzuraCast Games LinuxGSM Note - SteamCMD-GUI alt SourceMod Veloren Note - games server alt Mindustry-server-no Gameyfin Leaf Note - Minecraft server alt Folia FreeOrion AssaultCube OpenHV Plan Note - Minecraft analytics alt Player Analytics go-mc Naev Terraforming Mars Lancache Ownfoil mc-router TES3MP Infrared Adventure Game Studio Zero-K DDNet Lichess Board Note - chessground alt pychess FlightGear JGR's Patchpack Note - OpenTTD multiplayer server Waterfall Citizens Drop ET: Legacy Factorio Server Manager FreeCol VoxeLibre Xonotic Posio RconCli Pioneer Note - space game alt Naev-server-no Scribble.rs LinCity-NG Flying Squid SoulFire Hedgewars Red Eclipse OpenDungeons Minecraft Server Control Script Suroi auto-mcs Sponge RAWeb MegaGlest OpenClonk EDOPro SourceBans++ MineOS Curse of War GameVault PyChess-Variants Mineclonia VirtualTabletop Enshrouded Dedicated Server Armagetron Advanced OpenArena EasyWI piqueserver SRVPro SteamCMD Server Screeps Server (screeps-launcher) UFO: Alien Invasion Lix Luanti ContentDB Note - minetest mods server Mineclone2 Note - VoxeLibre server alt MineClone5 Nexuiz Note - Xonotic server alt darkplaces Simutrans GeoQuest Repixture Lodestone Core The Mana World Minus Games NextGBA Gameap Cubiks 2048 CnCNet Server 20 euros 243 Digibuzzer Framagames Sutom Trivabble
Compare MTA:SA with
choose an app… Mindustry OpenRCT2 papermc-docker ArchiSteamFarm Cytopia Note - games browser alt 2048 Nakama Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead Paper Note - PaperMC server alt Spigot Unciv
Feature Lichess MTA:SA Category Game Servers Game Servers License AGPL-3.0 GPL-3.0 Language Scala C++ Setup difficulty Hard Medium Min. RAM 4,096 MB 512 MB Deployment docker, source bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 18,557 ★ 1,822 First released 2010 2023 Replaces Chess.com —
Why pick each one
Choose Lichess if… Full-featured chess platform Completely ad-free Lichess details Choose MTA:SA if… Released under the GPL-3.0 license Active community (1.8k GitHub stars) Written in C++ Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM MTA:SA details
Frequently asked questions Is Lichess or MTA:SA better? Neither is universally better. Lichess has the larger community, while MTA:SA is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Lichess and MTA:SA free and open-source? Yes. Lichess is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and MTA:SA under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Lichess and MTA:SA with Docker? Lichess: yes. MTA:SA: check the project docs for container support.