I have been a professional FileMaker developer for over 20 years, and it keeps getting better and better. It runs nearly every aspect of our $10M company's operations. Awesome development system!
FileMaker is garbage. Sure it's good for work groups for 5-10 people, but for anything serious it just falls apart. FM 13 got ripped apart on FM forum, pages and pages of people complaining about speed. Their web publishing is a joke too. If your serious about development, learn a real language - like PHP or Ruby, and use a real database, like MySQL or Postgres.
Saying something like "we have $10 million in revenue and filemaker is amazing" is meaningless as the amount of revenue has nothing to do with the load you put on your system.
The price tag is not high. FileMaker Pro is an enterprise-level DBMS.
It's not. It's for companies that can't afford anything else. Companies usually start in FileMaker, but quickly outgrow it, and are lucky if they can ever migrate off of it, as it becomes to entwined in their business. I've seen it happen lots of times. What about it is Enterprise level? If you have a server crash, and people are using it - you have data corruption. Guaranteed. How can more than one developer work on it, you can't put it in a repository. Can you roll back changes if there's a problem? Nope. There is nothing Enterprise about it at all.
FileMaker is garbage. Sure it's good for work groups for 5-10 people, but for anything serious it just falls apart. FM 13 got ripped apart on FM forum, pages and pages of people complaining about speed. Their web publishing is a joke too. If your serious about development, learn a real language - like PHP or Ruby, and use a real database, like MySQL or Postgres.
Saying something like "we have $10 million in revenue and filemaker is amazing" is meaningless as the amount of revenue has nothing to do with the load you put on your system.
Wow! That's thoughtful analysis. My firm is significantly larger than a $10 million enterprise. We don't run it on FileMaker Pro. However, FileMaker Pro plays a significant role in IT. As I have stated above, our primary database is Oracle-based.
Firms like mine have increasingly integrating FMP in our workflow because we can develop new custom applications in FMP much faster than we can develop them in Oracle. Want to talk about reliability? These Oracle-based integrated systems require years to become stable enough to be trustworthy. Some rather famous names in my business have been nearly put out of business by them. This is not true only of Oracle, but it is true of Oracle. My firm was one of those bitten by the Oracle database monster. We lost months of records.
It's not. It's for companies that can't afford anything else. Companies usually start in FileMaker, but quickly outgrow it, and are lucky if they can ever migrate off of it, as it becomes to entwined in their business. I've seen it happen lots of times. What about it is Enterprise level? If you have a server crash, and people are using it - you have data corruption. Guaranteed. How can more than one developer work on it, you can't put it in a repository. Can you roll back changes if there's a problem? Nope. There is nothing Enterprise about it at all.
I must admit I always suspected that. Don't get me wrong I love FM but one wonders if sometimes, like many Windows applications often did (I've seen a large company using Excel as a DB!) an IT team that knows a product well sometimes takes it far beyond its limits simply due to their own comfort level. That said, better to run something you know well than something you don't.
Firms like mine have increasingly integrating FMP in our workflow because we can develop new custom applications in FMP much faster than we can develop them in Oracle. Want to talk about reliability? These Oracle-based integrated systems require years to become stable enough to be trustworthy. Some rather famous names in my business have been nearly put out of business by them. This is not true only of Oracle, but it is true of Oracle. My firm was one of those bitten by the Oracle database monster. We lost months of records.
Firms are leaving FileMaker in droves. Look on StackOverflow.com and there are hardly any resent questions regarding FileMaker. They restructured 2 years ago and stopped Bento because they where short of profits. http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/158864/apple-subsidiary-filemaker-reportedly-lays-off-20-amid-restructuring You guys bought and used FileMaker under the same conditions most companies do. As a band-aid to fix a problem. Oracle systems (though over-rated and overpriced) do not take years to become trustworthy. That's only if you don't know what you are doing, and given that you have slapped FileMaker onto the front end of you Oracle DB suggests that's the boat you are in.
So your source is an Internet fan forum rather than personal experience or business experience?
This means that this website is all wrong. I don't have the heart to tell them. Why don't you do it for me? Ple-e-ease?
Dear lord, you don't have a clue about databases do you? Of course that site is wrong, have you read how they generate those graphs? Have a look here: http://db-engines.com/en/ranking_definition - not really a great way to determine market share. Not sure how Oracle can eclipse both sql and mysql so their numbers are clearly off. Looks like the graph took off, right after they started tracking linked in profiles, so if anyone has filemaker in their resume will generate an uptick for filemaker. Also if you look here: http://db-engines.com/en/ranking_trend you will see that filemaker ranking has gone down in the last year.
I have built and currently manage filemaker databases. You need a quick tool for a small workgroup - yes filemaker will do in a pinch. Anything serious and it's a bad idea. You can't even have more than 1 developer work on the same database. It's kindergarten level.
Dear lord, you don't have a clue about databases do you? ...
Having been proven absolutely wrong about your assertion that companies are abandoning FileMaker Pro when they are in fact increasing its adoption, you have resorted simultaneously to personal invective and to excuses.
Well, at least you are not denying you don't know anything about databases - so that's a good start Not only don't you understand databases, but you seem to be unable to comprehend data as your own evidence shows a decline in FM in the last year. Nice dodge on the rest of my points, BTW - you go run along now and play with your little kindergarten database ok?
Well, at least you are not denying you don't know anything about databases - so that's a good start Not only don't you understand databases, but you seem to be unable to comprehend data as your own evidence shows a decline in FM in the last year. Nice dodge on the rest of my points, BTW - you go run along now and play with your little kindergarten database ok?
If you believe that up is down and that down is up, then more power to you.
LMAO oh please database master, enlighten us all and explain how 55.59 is higher than 52.898? You go run along now an play with your little kindergarten db.
Repeating the same childish comment with a word or two changed does not bespeak maturity. Neither does it diminish the utility of [B]FileMaker Pro[/B] to my firm nor to firms in my business.
Repeating the same childish comment with a word or two changed does not bespeak maturity. Neither does it diminish the utility of FileMaker Pro to my firm nor to firms in my business.
Sorry, database master, how immature it is of me asking you to back up your claims. You are correct, we should BOLD FileMaker Pro every time it is mentioned considering it's a kindergarten Enterprise level DB.
My own personal experience in using FileMaker in large companies is a mixed bag, but not because of FileMaker itself. It is because of the IT department.
About a year ago I sat in a meeting with two members of IT and a couple of engineers from a large steel company, and there wasn't a request we couldn't have handled within a week. Absolutely no hesitation on our part.
When we were about to leave, the head of IT asked "So you're going to write all this using .NET, right?" to which we replied "Sure, if you're willing to wait another year and quadruple both the development rate and maintenance fee." Even though we promised a demo in a week, a working product in two weeks, and a finished product in a month, they declined to hire us. That was almost two years ago, and this company STILL has engineers waste 100s of hours every quarter producing reports because nobody has yet to produce a product in .NET for them.
On the other hand, we are now working for another steel company whose IT department "gets it." Their IT department is hardware concentric, and very few actual programmers, and no DB experts. When we heard that several high-level engineers were wasting a couple of hours a day (yes, that's day, not week or month) on multiple shared spreadsheets, we were ushered in and welcomed right away. Solved the problem in about a month, and now we are being asked to convert a couple of Access DBs that have been lingering for years and starting to fail with new Windows OSs.
So why didn't the IT group produce something in MS SQL? Yeah right. Like the engineers have another few years to wait for that to happen.
Comments
I have been a professional FileMaker developer for over 20 years, and it keeps getting better and better. It runs nearly every aspect of our $10M company's operations. Awesome development system!
FileMaker is garbage. Sure it's good for work groups for 5-10 people, but for anything serious it just falls apart. FM 13 got ripped apart on FM forum, pages and pages of people complaining about speed. Their web publishing is a joke too. If your serious about development, learn a real language - like PHP or Ruby, and use a real database, like MySQL or Postgres.
Saying something like "we have $10 million in revenue and filemaker is amazing" is meaningless as the amount of revenue has nothing to do with the load you put on your system.
It's just a hop ahead from Bento in terms of long term viability.
The price tag is not high. FileMaker Pro is an enterprise-level DBMS.
It's not. It's for companies that can't afford anything else. Companies usually start in FileMaker, but quickly outgrow it, and are lucky if they can ever migrate off of it, as it becomes to entwined in their business. I've seen it happen lots of times. What about it is Enterprise level? If you have a server crash, and people are using it - you have data corruption. Guaranteed. How can more than one developer work on it, you can't put it in a repository. Can you roll back changes if there's a problem? Nope. There is nothing Enterprise about it at all.
Wow! That's thoughtful analysis. My firm is significantly larger than a $10 million enterprise. We don't run it on FileMaker Pro. However, FileMaker Pro plays a significant role in IT. As I have stated above, our primary database is Oracle-based.
Firms like mine have increasingly integrating FMP in our workflow because we can develop new custom applications in FMP much faster than we can develop them in Oracle. Want to talk about reliability? These Oracle-based integrated systems require years to become stable enough to be trustworthy. Some rather famous names in my business have been nearly put out of business by them. This is not true only of Oracle, but it is true of Oracle. My firm was one of those bitten by the Oracle database monster. We lost months of records.
I must admit I always suspected that. Don't get me wrong I love FM but one wonders if sometimes, like many Windows applications often did (I've seen a large company using Excel as a DB!) an IT team that knows a product well sometimes takes it far beyond its limits simply due to their own comfort level. That said, better to run something you know well than something you don't.
Firms like mine have increasingly integrating FMP in our workflow because we can develop new custom applications in FMP much faster than we can develop them in Oracle. Want to talk about reliability? These Oracle-based integrated systems require years to become stable enough to be trustworthy. Some rather famous names in my business have been nearly put out of business by them. This is not true only of Oracle, but it is true of Oracle. My firm was one of those bitten by the Oracle database monster. We lost months of records.
Firms are leaving FileMaker in droves. Look on StackOverflow.com and there are hardly any resent questions regarding FileMaker. They restructured 2 years ago and stopped Bento because they where short of profits. http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/158864/apple-subsidiary-filemaker-reportedly-lays-off-20-amid-restructuring You guys bought and used FileMaker under the same conditions most companies do. As a band-aid to fix a problem. Oracle systems (though over-rated and overpriced) do not take years to become trustworthy. That's only if you don't know what you are doing, and given that you have slapped FileMaker onto the front end of you Oracle DB suggests that's the boat you are in.
This means that [URL=http://db-engines.com/en/ranking_trend/system/FileMaker]this website[/URL] is all wrong. I don't have the heart to tell them. Why don't you do it for me? Ple-e-ease?
So your source is an Internet fan forum rather than personal experience or business experience?
This means that this website is all wrong. I don't have the heart to tell them. Why don't you do it for me? Ple-e-ease?
Dear lord, you don't have a clue about databases do you? Of course that site is wrong, have you read how they generate those graphs? Have a look here: http://db-engines.com/en/ranking_definition - not really a great way to determine market share. Not sure how Oracle can eclipse both sql and mysql so their numbers are clearly off. Looks like the graph took off, right after they started tracking linked in profiles, so if anyone has filemaker in their resume will generate an uptick for filemaker. Also if you look here: http://db-engines.com/en/ranking_trend you will see that filemaker ranking has gone down in the last year.
I have built and currently manage filemaker databases. You need a quick tool for a small workgroup - yes filemaker will do in a pinch. Anything serious and it's a bad idea. You can't even have more than 1 developer work on the same database. It's kindergarten level.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/421960/what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-filemaker
Typical.
Well, at least you are not denying you don't know anything about databases - so that's a good start
Not only don't you understand databases, but you seem to be unable to comprehend data as your own evidence shows a decline in FM in the last year. Nice dodge on the rest of my points, BTW - you go run along now and play with your little kindergarten database ok?
http://db-engines.com/en/ranking_trend/system/FileMaker
May 2014 - 55.59
May 2015 - 52.898
http://db-engines.com/en/ranking
Down 2 spots to 14. Not one mainstream database came behind FileMaker. Not one.
I know math is hard
You go run along now an play with your little kindergarten db.
LMAO oh please database master, enlighten us all and explain how 55.59 is higher than 52.898? You go run along now an play with your little kindergarten db.
Looks like the database master is at a loss for words!? You go run along now and play with your mickey mouse database.
Repeating the same childish comment with a word or two changed does not bespeak maturity. Neither does it diminish the utility of FileMaker Pro to my firm nor to firms in my business.
Sorry, database master, how immature it is of me asking you to back up your claims. You are correct, we should BOLD FileMaker Pro every time it is mentioned considering it's a kindergarten Enterprise level DB.
My own personal experience in using FileMaker in large companies is a mixed bag, but not because of FileMaker itself. It is because of the IT department.
About a year ago I sat in a meeting with two members of IT and a couple of engineers from a large steel company, and there wasn't a request we couldn't have handled within a week. Absolutely no hesitation on our part.
When we were about to leave, the head of IT asked "So you're going to write all this using .NET, right?" to which we replied "Sure, if you're willing to wait another year and quadruple both the development rate and maintenance fee." Even though we promised a demo in a week, a working product in two weeks, and a finished product in a month, they declined to hire us. That was almost two years ago, and this company STILL has engineers waste 100s of hours every quarter producing reports because nobody has yet to produce a product in .NET for them.
On the other hand, we are now working for another steel company whose IT department "gets it." Their IT department is hardware concentric, and very few actual programmers, and no DB experts. When we heard that several high-level engineers were wasting a couple of hours a day (yes, that's day, not week or month) on multiple shared spreadsheets, we were ushered in and welcomed right away. Solved the problem in about a month, and now we are being asked to convert a couple of Access DBs that have been lingering for years and starting to fail with new Windows OSs.
So why didn't the IT group produce something in MS SQL? Yeah right. Like the engineers have another few years to wait for that to happen.