Hello!

i would really love to get any useful information about the performance of Filemaker PHP or ODBC or XML/XSL comparing to using other databases like MySQL or MSSQL.

is there any benckmarks or something regarding that point?

the company i work with, using FileMaker, and we have large website that pulls 1000's of records (and growing) from the database.

at the moment, i'm using (ODBC with ASP.NET), it's alright for the moment there is no heavy load on the website, but i'm very concerned about future performance issues that might come up later, as the website is going to have a lot of traffic later... lets say 75/100 visitors at once.

i know the speed depends on the design of the database/tables is closly related to this but in general how is FileMaker comparing to MYSQL or MSSQL?

also if you can suggest what is the best option for me? I see that PHP API is easy and effective but is it fast enough to handle high volume traffic from the website? (i use ODBC, it's already have enough constrains with prmature SQL support).

I would really need any advice regarding this point as i'm at the begining of building the online interfaces for the company and i don't want to rebuild everything later again after i found out we have any critical performance issues.

Thanks in advance.

With "1000's" of records you are not likely going to notice a difference. It's when you get into 1,000,000's that you're going to see FM drop back fairly dramatically in comparison to SQL based systems.

The answer to your question is that yes the php API can handle fairly high volume quite happily provided that you're server is correctly configured.

If you are familiar with MySQL - then you might try build the web component in that instead and feed the MySQL db back into FM using ESS (External Sql Source - new feature in FM 9).

In all honesty though - run some performance simulations. Set up a few test pages in SQL and FM and run comparison tests with a few of your work friends .... or better yet set up a few macro's or FM Bots to run refresh's on a webviewer every few seconds ,... and see how it holds up.