Hi everyone! I was looking for a chess engine to help me analyse my games, but the problem is I don't know which one to choose. The three characteristics i'm looking for are (in this order) : strength, price and easy to use. The last one you can pretty much overlook it, though. So, given this, what chess engine do you guys recommend? Thanks. 

Also would go for Houdini - v1.5 is for free

http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm <- dl link is about halfway down the page

Stockfish is a good alternative to houdini. The "easy to use" comes with the interface, not the engine itself. You could search "chess gui" for those.

Jane,

There is no need to limit yourself to just one.  The free versions of

Houdini (1.5a)
Stockfish
Critter
Spike
and Rybka (2.3.2a)

are all fine and all very strong. 

If you want to purchase one, then purchase the latest edition of Houdini.

This site

http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/

gives a list of engines, ratings, and the color code indicates which ones are free, which ones are commercial, etc.

I'd recommend Shredder Classic. But that's because I use it.

What engine do you recommend?

the one between your ears :)

The engines r killing the art out of the game.but i suppose we shud use them.not tryin 2 start a controversy.houdini gets my vote.

I recommend a gui called Lucas Chess. It comes with a whole list of great chess engines built in so you can try them all out and decide for yourself which one you like. Its free and easy to use and has a number of very nice features so what more do you want?

Frank,

I make it a point to download, test, and evaluate all GUIs.  Until your post, I was not familiar with Lucas Chess.  A Google search gave me the link and I'm downloading it now.  Later this weekend I hope to test it.  I'm not crazy about some of the screenshots, and I hope the piece font can be changed, but we'll see.  Thanks for mentioning it.

what is gui

Lucas Chess comes with 20 different engines you can choose from and play against and  if you like you can download additional engines from the internet. It has many features, my favorite is "Train Like A Grandmaster" which is basically solitaire chess and they give you a list of gm's you can choose from, I picked Tal and they have 15000 of his games you can use. Or you can use it for analysis or as a pgn viewer.

Toyota has some really reliable engines, so does Volkswagen... oh... apologies.  Wrong forum...

I second the recommendation for Critter.

@thehedgehog2000 - It's true that there are plenty of engines stronger than Fritz, but I still recommend buying Fritz for the interface and built-in analysis tools. Version 13 has some great study aids and functions. There's no reason to run the actual Fritz engine with all the good free engines out there. Just plug your favorite into your interface. 

I also like Stockfish and the Lucas Chess link is a great bonus for later when I have time to analyze my games. How are the endgame tablebases on these engines as well? This would be a great ting fo me as i am rapidly going into endgames more often now agianst my opponents and though my endgame is good, i would like to beef it up along with tactics as well.

A bit o' help who be appreciated here... I have the Engine Stockfish and Arena for GUI. I heard Arena is not very reliable according to certain sources, but can it still be a good complement for Stockfish? Despite their self-congratulations and technical nonsense, I didn't find answer on their web page...

I dont like arena much, It's better than anything else for playing/testing engines against each other, but everything else falls short.

Get SCID, t's much better

Many Thanks. And their website way more user friendlier than the above mentionned. Let's see what this baby got:)

I think you are still misunderstanding the difference between GUI and engine. The Fritz GUI is what has infinite analysis. I use it with the critter engine, for example.