(Original post by karakoro-san: https://note.com/karakorororo/n/nbfc14b45f3a6)
Recently I've been playing a lot on lishogi. Before I knew it, I had the second-highest number of games played on the site.
As I play games on lishogi, keep tabs on development progress on the lishogi discord (and occasionally get into debates), I've come to realise that there are actually a surprising number of shogi sites aimed at an international audience.
Let me introduce them one by one.
The most famous international shogi site. A lot of Japanese also frequent here.
With beautiful graphics and a multitude of features as selling points, there is plenty that one can do on the site.
Arrows can be drawn on the board; various moves can be tried in analysis mode; tournaments are supported. Shogi *lub 24 could pick up a thing or two.
With typically around 700~800 online players, maybe excepting high-dan players it's not too hard to find an opponent.
One flaw compared to lishogi is that the site is laid out such that the page to play games is separated from other pages for tournament management or the community; this can be slightly confusing.
A freshly established site still warm from the oven. A younger sibling of lichess.
Modelled after the major chess site lichess, I have a strong feeling that it could become something huge, although for the moment there are still many bugs and it can't be fully recommended yet.
But, considering it is completely free, developed by volunteers who make daily improvements and advances, there is a good chance that it will sooner or later surpass existing shogi sites.
Those who are interested should definitely try out the complete lichess (although lichess itself too is continually upgrading and improving).
(The best free, adless Chess server)
Possibly a more realistic line to take can be seen in lidraughts (a version of lichess for draughts).
(The best free, adless draughts server)
An English site which covers more or less everything, presenting the basic rules, tsumeshogi problems, and famous games.
It appears to have recently undergone a substantial upgrade.
There is an opening explorer, although it only contains older games. Compared to chess, the information gap is saddening.
I would like for the international players to build their own unique database by pulling games from high-rated online players and other sources.
(r/shogi subreddit English Shogi Twitch Streamer Master List)
The link is to a post collating English-language streamers who stream shogi on sites such as YouTube and Twitch.
A famous name would probably be Karolina-san.
(Shogi Harbour Twitch channel)
There's also the odd Vtuber in the list.
(Gotanda Enu's Twitch channel)
It looks like a game that teaches shogi will be available for purchase soon (in about two weeks).
I'm looking forward to it.
Chess sites and apps are on a whole other level feature-wise, compared to shogi.
I feel that this sentiment is slowly flowing through the international shogi community.
In a few years, with the maturation of international shogi sites and apps, I look forward to them fostering healthy competition in the features they have to offer.
~translated from Japanese by Illion