Chess.com is the chess site I use and no matter how bad it might be I'd still use it because most Twitch chess streamers I watch are on chess.com and most titled chess players play on chess.com and chess.com has the largest player base (over lichess.org and chess24.com).

But luckily it's a pretty good chess site. Since it is global you can find opponents at any time day or night. Games run well (it's an html chess client running on your browser communicating with the chess.com servers) though since its client side html it can lag in fast games (but most beginners won't see that as they'll be playing longer games). A good computer and good internet connection are important.

We'll review by going through the sections.

Home

• Messages - a rudimentary email system and you also get notifications here. On your main email you'll often just get an email that says you have a message on chess.com and a link to go view the message. I don't particularly like that it's this disjoint.
• Stats - you have statistics for the various game modes. You can drill down to specific games and replay or analyze them, even your first games (a move record of a chess game takes very little data). You can do queries to help you find specific games and even find games by opening played.
• Awards - they have game-ification badges for various site achievements like playing your first game or playing a game with a specific opening. I'm not really into these.
• Profile - a profile that other's see, including a notes section where people can post notes to you. Besides setting your and location you have a blank section where you can put whatever you want (using a rich text editor) and I've seen people put several pages of info about themselves.
• Membership - free membership you can play games and do some analysis, puzzles and learning courses. Gold ($30/year), Platinum ($50/year) and Diamond ($100/year) memberships unlock more and more features. I did free for a few months then moved to Diamond. Some chess streamers hold tournaments with 1-month membership prizes. There is also a 7-day free trial.
• Theme - you can change the theme of your chessboard or customize among a selection of boards and pieces. You can't upload your own board or pieces.
• Settings - there are actually a lot of settings though the defaults work fine. But it's not a super-customizable site.

(to be continued)