They (whomever “they” may be) say that everyone uses Chessbase as their database of choice. However, with the release of Convekta’s new training interface, “Peshk@”, I was reasonably impressed with their design, and considered getting Chess Assistant instead of Chessbase.
I’d like to hear opinions on the comparisons between the two programs. Thank you.
Erm… Wonder who that “they” is? Chess Assistant is very popular, also. Most every comparative review or question I’ve read (which I followed when again making the decision myself last year) suggests it’s six of one, half dozen of the other. Each program has its’ strengths and weaknesses.
Sadly, I can’t help very much because I ultimately settled on ChessBase 2007 Light Premium. (And in big part because I previously used CB6 light a lot, and because I wanted to take advantage of ChessBase format CDs.)
That said, both have demo versions which can be tried. So, I’d suggest trying both. (BTW, CB 2007 Light free version can’t create databases or save games, so it’s more for trying out and just reading files as opposed to creating/recording your own. Dunno about CA / Peshk@. But you still can try both to get the feel of them, then decide. 
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I have Chessbase 8, but it has been pretty unreliable, constantly corrupting the databases, which required me to make a lot of backups.
Are CBV files compatible with Chess Assistant?
Chess Assistant is quite popular with the Russian and former satellite states community, but perhaps we have more of them in L.A. than most areas. I haven’t looked at it in a while, but as I recall it has some very handy search and sort functions. Both CA and CB support PGN, so there’s no real compatibility problem. Pick one you like and stick with it.
Sorry for the late reply – you might have already decided.
The only part of this that I can answer is that Chessbase has the more modern interface. Chess Assistant’s GUI has more of a Windows98-era look, unlike Peshk@ and Rybka Aquarium.
As other people mentioned, try the demos and look for the spec sheets on the companies’ websites.
I bought Chessbase based on looks, but I’m just a beginner. Either one would have been overkill for me function-wise. It might turn out that someone else’s decision would be based on the search functions or other features.
Side note: As for Peshk@, I would recommend it to anyone. This past winter I had bought some of the earlier versions of Convekta’s training modules, which IMO have somewhat primitive interfaces. Recently I bought some of the same modules for Peshk@ – it’s a much more pleasant and attractive interface, and the “rating” progress indicator can merge the results from active modules into one graph. Convekta offers upgrade pricing to the Peshk@ versions to people who can show proof-of-purchase for the earlier versions.
I’m really grateful for all the comments made here, I’ve been thinking about this kind of thing for at least 20 years, but have never actively pursued it beyond PC programs like ChessMaster. But the thing is, a dedicated machine that helps analyze chess positions/openings whatever would be a great tool. Michael Tal gave a simul at the Marshall Chess club a year or so before he died and I recall he was asked if the top players would soon be training against chess programs. His answer was something like, “No, not against them. With them!” I’m pretty sure he was talking about a portable database that could be brought with a person while travelling.
Anyway, I’ll take the advice given earlier and will look into the free samples offered before deciding if something like this is right for me, or within my budget – no one mentioned price here!
Tal rocks!
I just use SCID with a database I got from someone over the internet. I think that is enough to suffice for me. Has full functionality, a multi-million game db runs quick, extensive search capability, annotation support, sorting and exporting options, built in ECO book, Toga II engine at 2600 ELO, really all you need in my opinion, and it’s free! Excellent resource for copy/pasting pgns of your internet games and using the novelty feature to find the opening deviation from book using your db as a comparison, etc, looking at the tree to see what GMs did in that position vs what you did, and browsing the resulting games, very handy.
Thanks for the info, JW, free is for me! 
I’ll definitely look into those programs. 
Should’ve replied earlier, but… I’ve heard of others having some stability issues with 8. CB Light, free and premium, is based on CB9 as I understand it. Never had a problem yet myself, and have read elsewhere that 9 fixed a lot of the stability issues. Dunno about CB10 - don’t have enough money for even the lower end version. (Though I did buy the Light Premium.)
And ETA: I’ve read both that CBV archives can and cannot be opened directly in Chess Assistant. But I’ve also read CA can handle both CBH and CBF just fine, except for training questions. So you could, if you already use CB8 just read it in CA without having to compress them. (Or use CB8 or CB Light to uncompress the CBV, then read the CBH.)
I bought CB9 and it does not work. I can’t move games from one database to the next one; i.e., it freezes. It worked fine for 2 days and now it just freezes. No one seems to know what to do about it. I called the USA distributor, but have yet to receive a reply. I never had a problem with CA. Hindsight being 20/20 I should have just updated my old CA.
Never had a problem with 9, except sometimes when adding games to very large databases. It will tend to stop responding when reconfiguring the keys, but the games are copied and the keys installed - I just have to close and restart the program when it happens.
If this happened to you soon after installation, and your machine meets the specs required, it may well have some conflict with other software you are running. I’d try saving my DBs, then uninstalling the program and reinstalling it.
Thanks for the suggestion. It did not work for me. In fact now Fritz no longer works since I re-installed CB9. I even tried system restore --now that does not work. CB has really messed up my computer. It worked fine (Fritz and system restore) until I installed CB9.