Feature: self hosted engines (like FICS, ICC) about lila HOT 3 CLOSED

I wouldn't rely on the users to host engines. That is far too unreliable.

Keep in mind that other engines can be theoretically plugged into Lichess. For instance, PHP Lichess used Crafty.

However, there really is no need for that. There is no FOSS engine right now that can compete with Stockfish, and Houdini gets most of its points in the rating from being very good against weak engines. @graphitemaster says he'll change all that but until then, Stockfish is king and there is really no need to support other engines. Engine integration goes quite a bit beyond UCI by the way (as you noted in your issue).

from lila.

Thanks for the quick response,

It's not so much a need, but just a want. I maintain a hobby chess engine for fun but there's virtually no where to casually play it against other engines or people. Basically only FICS and ICC explicitly allow users to maintain an engine account, but those sites are so drastically outdated that using them is such a pain.

from lila.

Hi jdc2172, I understand your request but I'm afraid it's not going to happen. Because it would require me to write a play API for lichess, and it's not worth the work.

from lila.