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FileMaker 19 for macOS Launches With Support for Third-Party Libraries
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I don't get the bashing... Guess what people, the world doesn't revolve around you. Just because you don't use or need something, doesn't mean others don't need something like it. The article even says over a million active users. Filemaker is excellent for small companies that need create excellent looking databases on their own, without being an expert at creating data bases. We've been using it for over 20 years. Its easy to learn, create, use, and its very stable.
My problems with them is that their yearly upgrades are typically very weak. Maybe 1 mediocre new thing and 10 small changes and they expect an absurd upgrade price for it. For anyone that has their databases already built, the odds of wanting to retool your database to add even one of those small features are slim. Then add in the crazy upgrade price per user and its easy to see why people don't upgrade often. So last year they started to do the same lazy thing that other developers do, go the subscription route. Our company does not support developers that go subscription so it appears that the end of the road is coming for us. They currently still offer perpetual licenses at a even more ridiculous inflated price to try and persuade users to switch to subscription. I call this game playing and when you start playing games with your customers, you always lose. Right now because perpetual pricing still exists, we will stick with them but we won't upgrade until every 2nd or 3rd year because of their crazy pricing, their loss.
My problems with them is that their yearly upgrades are typically very weak. Maybe 1 mediocre new thing and 10 small changes and they expect an absurd upgrade price for it. For anyone that has their databases already built, the odds of wanting to retool your database to add even one of those small features are slim. Then add in the crazy upgrade price per user and its easy to see why people don't upgrade often. So last year they started to do the same lazy thing that other developers do, go the subscription route. Our company does not support developers that go subscription so it appears that the end of the road is coming for us. They currently still offer perpetual licenses at a even more ridiculous inflated price to try and persuade users to switch to subscription. I call this game playing and when you start playing games with your customers, you always lose. Right now because perpetual pricing still exists, we will stick with them but we won't upgrade until every 2nd or 3rd year because of their crazy pricing, their loss.
That's fine...if you need a CRM.
...And you can find one that works the way you do, and gives the info and reports the way you want.
...And that you can either run locally or in the cloud as you like.
...And you can run with or without a server, or an internet connection if need be.
...And that allows you to create a stand-alone executable to send to other users that don't need a license to run.
For everybody else, that needs or wants something else beyond off the shelf/cloud solutions...not so much.
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I don't think it is even close. If you want a cloud shared spreadsheet, Airtable is great. If you need more....good luck.
I wish it was cheaper, or had a free/lite edition. That would imply they had a marketing department that worked.
That’s because you’re looking at database applications. FileMaker is a WIP, and is #1 in the world by a long shot.According to the attached, its marketshare is nearly insignificant.
FileMaker Market Share and Competitor Report | Compare to FileMaker, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server
Read FileMaker customer reviews, learn about the product’s features, and compare to competitors in the Databases marketwww.datanyze.com
Workplace Innovation Platforms Market Size 2020 Global Industry, Demand, Growth Analysis, Share, Revenue and Forecast 2026
May 13, 2020 (The Expresswire) -- Final Reports will add the analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on this industry Global “Workplace Innovation Platforms...
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Regarding the cost, I agree it's too much. But I don't think it's really changed that much - if you look closely. Just checked my records (in FileMaker! LOL), and I paid $320 in 2010 for FileMaker Pro 11 . Back then, FileMaker Advanced was a separate product that cost around $500, like the current standalone version. What they have done in the meantime is to discontinue the "Pro" version and only offer the more expensive "Advanced" version. The main difference was that the "Pro" version couldn't create standalone apps, plus some other smaller differences.
While this is certainly true, there are plenty of companies that don’t want a generic, off-the-shelf CRM; they want an application that molds to their business, not the other way around. The beauty of FileMaker is that you can actually use it for that—or if you need something more powerful than what you can build yourself, you can hire one of the thousands of full-time FileMaker developers out there (like me).
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There are tens of thousands of companies that use FileMaker as their backbone. While there’s probably technically no more of a need for it than any other product under the sun, it’s still the world’s #1 WIP.
Yes, there are definitely open-source alternatives, but they’re not nearly as robust.
Regarding cost...It has changed quite a bit under the hood over the years. Performance, file size limits, number of records limits, and so on. It really is substantially better and more powerful than it was 10 or even 5 years ago.
The problem (in my view) is: Many FM users don't fully leverage the tool. In fact, they barely scratch the surface. That is a testament to the fact that it really is easy to get started with, for basic things. But honestly, there should be a basic version that has some of the power features disabled, and half the cost. Bento was kinda that...but never really hit the mark for me.
Oh, and FM actually has pretty good discounts for Edu and multi-user licenses, but they don't really publish them. So it is not as expensive as it appears from retail pricing for big users. That seems like less than ideal marketing to me, if one is trying to grow the user base. It makes me think they don't really want one-man-band desktop folks to buy it; they want SMB and enterprise sites as their primary customer base.
I really wish Apple would bring this back or a introduce a new Simple easy to use consumer level database.
Apple (which owns Claris/FileMaker) has a quite deliberate way of doing away with what they don't want to do anymore: slow down development; roll in pieces to slowly head it into a direction that lets it die or get absorbed into something else, and frustrate away the customer base slowly. They've been doing this for years with their business-related products. They discontinued Xserve and made OS X Server into a cute App. That made some people leave. Then they started pulling functionality out of that app, forcing others to abandon ship. Now, what's Server? A profile manager and that's about it. ARD, once the workhorse of admins, is a buggy joke. Their "pro" products are not PROfessional; they just jacked up consumer devices. I think they want to avoid angry press and hordes of ticked off developers and administrators, so they let products they don't care about wallow and die slowly. I think they're doing the same with FileMaker. I've been developing in it for 25 years. Having written solutions and programs in SQL Server, VB, Sybase, et al, I can tell you that FileMaker has a flexibility and robustness (with a few quirks, kind of fun & challenging ones) that kept me focused on it as my database of choice over the years. But the big piece of this release seems to be JavaScript. They've been obviously heading it into a direction of a web platform the past few years, and this is just another step. My prediction is eventually there will be no more FileMaker server, and they'll require SMBs host their data (YOUR data) on their own "cloud" or that of one of their "preferred platforms." I wish they would just admit they want out.
(Sorry, this turned into a bit of a rant.)
(Sorry, this turned into a bit of a rant.)
First off, your boydsnaps.com site - wow! Great design and such a generous effort on your part.
I agree with all your thoughts on FMP. The software was always one of the easiest to use, especially for those new to relational DB's, and building or prototyping UI's was typically much easier to implement.
In the past decade we've enjoyed a number of important updates, and advanced features to easily position FMP as one of the better development products for small to medium-sized businesses. Alas, pricing has also increased, and it's understandable that ROI might not be there for those where the new tools and updates are not critical.
We have a robust manufacturing/accounting ERP system, one that has an API. Yet, we find the development and time costs favor FMP in developing specialized databases that work with our ERP system. But it doesn't end there, we use FMP many times to develop ad hoc systems as needs arise.
For me, that is the overriding advantage, the ease of use, and flexibility for developing and automating tasks that require relational databases.
Thanks, glad you like the website! I need to take the time to understand just what the cloud-based version of Filemaker is, the concept is new to me. Is it sort of like having your own filemaker server, but it's in their cloud? The purchase price for the standalone version is so high now, you could use the cloud version for over two years for the same amount. And it might have an advantage for me if I could use it on multiple machines and websites.
I have used it, but it lacked basic features for my needs, and they put their efforts into other things. Not terribly surprising given that my needs centred around scientific and social data applications, so I migrated to other packages. It was nice to have something "moderately" robust on macOS however.
Our agency needed to build a new business database system, and the bids to build the system from FileMaker developers were about 1/3 the cost or less than those from other developers, who were suggesting PHP/MySQL custom solutions. It is very powerful but also can be used by a novice to solve simpler problems. You can’t say that about custom solutions built on SQL.
FYI - it also has some really nice integration with SQL. Years ago, I went to a 2-week course on Crystal Reports so I could learn how to make reports extracting data from one of those custom SQL systems. After finishing the course, I spent many hours creating simple reports with a pretty high level of frustration at the extreme complexity of the software. I heard about FileMaker and thought I’d buy it and give it a try. Within a couple days, I’d learned it on my own and had easily created reports that pulled data from the SQL server. Plus I could do more with the data when I pulled it out.
FYI - it also has some really nice integration with SQL. Years ago, I went to a 2-week course on Crystal Reports so I could learn how to make reports extracting data from one of those custom SQL systems. After finishing the course, I spent many hours creating simple reports with a pretty high level of frustration at the extreme complexity of the software. I heard about FileMaker and thought I’d buy it and give it a try. Within a couple days, I’d learned it on my own and had easily created reports that pulled data from the SQL server. Plus I could do more with the data when I pulled it out.
I just had some flashbacks reading this...why so companies tolerated "reports" being so expensive and difficult to create I will never really understand.
I love Oracle and made tons of websites and various databases with it. But Filemaker is so fast and easy! Web access, don’t know about, but as an in-house database with easy to make reports it can’t be beat.
Well, here I am a month later with a brand new Mini running Catalina.... and my old 32-bit version of FileMaker Pro 11! Am replacing my old PC with Windows 10 in Parallels. Much to my surprise, FMP 11 installed perfectly on Windows and opens all my existing databases. Eventually I'll upgrade to a new version of Filemaker, but not today.
To be fair... the fonts look very ragged and the mouse scroll wheel doesn't work, so it's not ideal. But everything works. My original plan was to use Parallels to create a MacOS Sierra virtual machine so I could continue using FileMaker and other legacy software. May still do that, I'd expect that to look better.
Just setup a macOS Sierra virtual machine in Parallels, dragged a copy of FileMaker Pro 11 to the Applications folder and it opened right up. Looks much better than the Windows version.
I first used FMPro v2 on a PowerBook 140! Wow, I'm old... Anyway, for the past 15 years I have been developing my own database for my medical practice, it is the best EMR I've ever seen. I does (almost) everything I need and does not annoy me with anything I do not need. So do I love Filemaker?
No. It is undoubtedly easy to use and your imagination is the limit as to what kind of "files" you "make". But really nothing important has happened in the actual database part of the application ever since it became relational. Only a very few new functionality get introduced with every version and the interface for developing the database has barely changed throughout the past 10 versions. There are new and new integration features that get added to the application but what they integrate more easily and more deeply is developed with the same old clunky database management mode. It took 30 years for the feature "page x of total y" to finally get added to the feature set!
No. It is undoubtedly easy to use and your imagination is the limit as to what kind of "files" you "make". But really nothing important has happened in the actual database part of the application ever since it became relational. Only a very few new functionality get introduced with every version and the interface for developing the database has barely changed throughout the past 10 versions. There are new and new integration features that get added to the application but what they integrate more easily and more deeply is developed with the same old clunky database management mode. It took 30 years for the feature "page x of total y" to finally get added to the feature set!