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by cepth 2389 days ago
I can't speak to Chess Assistant, but as a longtime Chessbase owner/user, it lets you:

* Search any database (proprietary or freely downloaded) for games matching positions (partial position matches too)

* Quiz yourself on openings; e.g. the actual memorization of the move orders, which I don't believe ChessRoots is showing

* Generate endless tactics problems to drill on

* Generate annotations for games; e.g. branching moves, variations, text comments etc.

* Graphical markup of positions, to show tactics like pins, skewers, forks, etc.

* ChessBase gives you a perpetual license. You can upgrade if you think new versions are worth it (they usually aren't). I happily used ChessBase 9 for several years before upgrading to 14.

It's really not a fair comparison. If ChessBase is Photoshop, ChessRoots as it is now is just a simple painting tool. This isn't to say that ChessRoots can't be something worth the price down the road, but for now this is not a great comparison.

Chess.com is also something that I've happily paid for for many years. For $99 a year, you get unlimited tactics training, engine analysis (with Stockfish), and a full license to what used to be called Chess Mentor, in addition to opening specific training.