I have on my laptop Fritz 12, Fritz 17, ChessBase 16, Chess Assistant 18, ChessOK Aquarium and Aquarium 2020.
Back in January I posted that I had been spending some time fiddling around with ChessBase 16 and it wasn't until February that I figured out how to publish games using the program.
At the time I mentioned that one reader had asked about downloading a pgn of the posted game, but at that time it wasn't possible. I was using two different programs (Fritz 12 to analyze and ChessOK Aquarium to post) and downloading a game from the blog was not an option. Later I discovered that Fritz 17 and ChessBase 16 both make publishing games very easy and they can be downloaded so I have been using Fritz 17.
When it comes to Fritz and ChessBase there is some overlap of functionality, but each has a specific focus on what they are used for.
Fritz focuses on playing against it, giving you hints and, if you can tolerate it, talking to you and playing music. Fortunately, you can silence it.
Fritz will do a complete analysis of your game and will let you add your own annotations. The full analysis inserts opening variations based on the games it finds in whatever database you instruct it to look into and it will find tactics that you missed. You can search databases for exact positions, players and a number of other criteria.
ChessBase is very similar to Fritz in many respects, but its emphasis is on database management, opening preparation and training. If you are a pro or a serious player wanting to improve then ChessBase would probably be your best choice.
If the improvement ship has sailed for you then Fritz is the best choice.
If you want to publish games in a blog then either program works very well.
The only problem I have with ChessBase is that when posting a game in Blogger it has some weird numbers at the beginning of the post. I have ho idea what they are, but noticed a similar thing when posting games using Aquarium; the solution was simple, just delete them in Blogger as they seem to have zero purpose and they they do not effect the output.
Pricewise, the ChessBase Starter edition costs $199.95 and the Premium edition $469.95. Depending on where you purchase it, Fritz 18 (the latest edition) cost about $90.
On the other hand, Chess Aquarium 2022 only costs $44.95. Needless to say, you can download and use the latest Stockfish engine.
I was primarily interested in Aquarium because of its Interactive Deep Analysis (IDeA) feature. This feature is similar to the Infinite Analysis feature found in all the programs. IDeA stores the analysis in an analysis tree. The tree is saved and you can browse it even while the analysis is in progress. Interesting lines are analyzed deeply but weak moves are only considered briefly or not at all. In the Infinite Analysis mode, once you stop it, that's it...the analysis disappears. Personally, for my purposes the IDeA analysis feature did not turn out to be something in which I was interested.
One significant disadvantage that precluded my using using Aquarium 2020 instead of ChessOK Aquarium to publish games was that the with former the game moves appeared using weird characters. While that had no effect on playing through the game, it looked odd.
There were a couple of times I contacted Aquarium for help when installing the program (user error it turned out!) and their response was quick and helpful. However, when I inquired about the weird characters in the game score they never responded.
What about Chess Assistant? It's up to version 22 which sells for $94.95. It, too, is a program to manage games and play online, but it is primarily for managing databases.
Personally, I do not care for the appearance of its GUI and I find using it a bit klutzy, but that may be because I am a long time Fritz user.
In closing, for most average players who want to play, analyze or do basic database operations (create and search) Fritz will fill the bill at a reasonable cost. For those on a budget, Aquarium will also work very well.
For those who have a serious interest in analyzing, studying, building an opening repertoire and working with databases then ChessBase is the best, but I can recommend Chess Assistant if you are on a budget.
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