A set of simple molecules in closed and open-shell ground states is treated by the three techniques mentioned in the title, using the same geometries and basis sets (DZ + P). It is found that for nearly all molecules treated in this study (exceptions are H2 and CH3) consistently about 98% of the CEPA valence shell correlation energy is obtained by third-order many-body Ray-leigh-Schrodinger perturbation theory (MB-RSPT). The CEPA and MB-RSPT results for reaction energies and barrier heights for some simple reactions differ by 0 to 30 kJ/mol, the CEPA results being in most cases closer to experiment than MB-RSPT, while CI results are much less reliable as long as CI is limited to singly and doubly substituted configurations only.