While Chessbase clearly dominates the chess database market, there is a free alternative in the shape of SCID - Shane's Chess Information Database. Developed over a number of years by Shane Hudson from New Zealand, this piece of software is not only free as in beer, but also free as in speech ie it is 'open source' software.
Having used it on and off for a number of years there are two important features it has. Firstly, it runs on a number of platforms, and as I am mainly a Linux user, this is pretty useful to me. Secondly, with every new release the product gets better, both in terms of features and in ease of use.
SCID even contains its own analysis engine, Scidlet, although it does come with the facility to use pretty much any Winboard compatible engine.
Probably the best way to find out more about SCID is to visit the homepage at http://scid.sourceforge.net/
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Apparently, Shane hasn't updated Scid since 2004. No one knows what happened to him. They believe he was seriously ill in 2004 and he has not responded to inquiries. This has led to a schism in the scid community which is split between chessdb and scid-pg.
Apparently, there are no scid users in New Zealand who can simply go to his house and knock on the door and find out for everyone if Shane is well or if he is dead.
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