How does an FM Server solution compare in terms of speed, reliability and database integrity to a PostgreSQL (or MySQL, for that matter) solution? I've heard Bad Things about FM Server performance under anything other than a very light load, and I wanted to know what some experts had to say.

It's not fair to compare FM Server with a SQL Server, FM Server is just a fileserver, the others are database servers. FM Server's speed, reliability and database integrity are from a whole other planet than Postgesql's.

Give us example of what you want to achieve.

In plain search FM is faster than MySQL on Windows. Two to 10 times.

FM server is NOT fileserver, but very fast multithreaded FM database server. We never had an issue with FM speed, reliability and db integrity.

Anatoli said:

Give us example of what you want to achieve.

In plain search FM is faster than MySQL on Windows. Two to 10 times.

FM server is NOT fileserver, but very fast multithreaded FM database server. We never had an issue with FM speed, reliability and db integrity.

You surely must be joking. Real life measurements show mySQL to be about 100 times faster than fmp when searching and about 10E8 times faster when reporting (grouping data). FMP Server is not a database server, talk to Filemaker engineers and all shall be revealed.

I agree. There's no way in Hades that FM is even remotely as fast as MySQL. Although, on Windows it may be, since Windows is much slower than a *nix environment where you should be running MySQL anyway.

Application application application.... it all comes down to application LOL

the SQL based solutions such as Postgress and sql are true transactional servers and their applications are wide ranging.

There are certain applications where SQL makes sense and others where filemaker wins hands down.

regarding the server component of filemaker, i've used it extensively and find it really handy for certain projects. However, comparing it to SQL is like... well.. comparing MS Word to MS Excel.... yes you "Could" write a letter with each of them, and i have even known people to use excel as a word processor. Just because it can be done doesn't mean it's the best approach.

FM Server is unique to a filemaker environment meaning you can't use say, Access to connect to a FM Server (versions prior to 6) wheres SQL is really connection independant - you can even connect to an SQL server with filemaker.... Having said that, wait until the next version is released. I understand it will be akin to the difference in approach between 6 and 7.

As I started to say... it all comes down to application. I think you're probably trying to figure out if you should use an SQL platform over a FileMaker platform and without knowing what you're trying to achive i can't offer you any advice.

Certainly in my opinion, the speed of development in a filemaker environment is light-years ahead of that with SQL and it's subsequent user interface which would be most likely a php front end these days.

I think the important thing to remember is that SQL is a database engine. Operative word being "engine" whereas filemaker is an entire solution.

I hope this helps?

Steve

Steve