Claris FileMaker vs. Quickbase

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Claris FileMaker
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Claris' FileMaker is presented as a Workplace Innovation Platform, and is used to create a custom app. Manual processes can be automated with Claris FileMaker Pro, and apps can be created to manage contacts, track inventory, organize projects, etc.
$21
per month per user
Quickbase
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Quickbase helps users tackle any project, no matter how complex. Quickbase helps customers see, connect and control complex projects. Whether it’s raising a skyscraper or coordinating vaccine rollouts, the no-code software platform allows business users to custom fit solutions to the way they work – using information from across the systems they already have.
$700
per month
Pricing
Claris FileMakerQuickbase
Editions & Modules
Platform Subscription
$21
per month per user
Individual desktop license
$594
one-time fee
Enterprise
Full Customizable
per month/billed annually
Business
Starting at $2,200
per month
Team
Started at $700
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Claris FileMakerQuickbase
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsQuickbase offers three key plans, with feature distinction, simple and consistent entitlements, and a flexible licensing model, giving users the option of either user based or usage based licensing across all 3 plans.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Claris FileMakerQuickbase
Considered Both Products
Claris FileMaker
Chose Claris FileMaker
We previously had deployed QuickBase. However, we realized that QuickBase would not allow us to construct our app the way we worked. That is where FMP came in. Its ability to adapt to the way we work made transitioning very easy.
Chose Claris FileMaker
Quick Base is internet-based and easily programmable by the end-user. Because of that, it is not as customizable as FileMaker. We had very specific purposes that were more easily accomplished in FileMaker (eg. Auto-calculating fields were more fool proof-ly accomplished in …
Quickbase
Chose Quickbase
Quickbase was selected before I can onboard, but it's flexibility definitely suite our business needs.
Chose Quickbase
When we were choosing Quickbase, we looked at FileMaker Pro and a couple of other ones that I don't remember, but we ultimately went with Quickbase just because of the flexibility of building it exactly how we needed it to be.
Chose Quickbase
We only tried FileMaker Pro before Quickbase, and it was quite hard to achieve what we needed. It took a few days to figure out how to create a couple relationships in FileMaker Pro, where we were able to develop almost our whole application in the same amount of time in …
Chose Quickbase
When we originally set out to create our human resource management system, we strongly considered developing it on the .NET platform. However, that would mean that we'd have to rely on a small team of experts for not only the initial development, but also future enhancements. …
Chose Quickbase
Overall, Quickbase provides us the best overall balance of functionality, customization, speed of development, and price. There are platforms which have more features, platforms which are less expensive, and platforms which offer native interaction with other systems more …
Chose Quickbase
Quickbase is much easier to use than FileMaker. I can create reports on QuickBase within minutes whereas on FileMaker it would take me hours to create something similar. The online access is definitely a big plus as well. FileMaker had limited access online and was not very …
Chose Quickbase
We used to use an Excel file (yikes!) to manually track the bare minimum details of events and projects, often on shared collaboration sites that had some tricky functionality (SharePoint Collaboration sites for Mac users, for example). QuickBase became supported by my company …
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

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Claris FileMakerQuickbase
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Quixy
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Claris FileMakerQuickbase
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
(48 ratings)
9.3
(516 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(6 ratings)
9.9
(54 ratings)
Usability
6.0
(4 ratings)
9.0
(40 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(16 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(15 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(5 ratings)
8.7
(44 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.5
(22 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(10 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(15 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
User Testimonials
Claris FileMakerQuickbase
Likelihood to Recommend
Claris
If your company is really small, I can understand the need for a product like this. However, I would go for MS Access... FileMaker Pro can not be integrated with other systems (like MS Access can at least be handled by C# for instance, and can be integrated with MS Excel or even SQL server). I'm really not sure in what scenario one would choose for FileMaker Pro. If your application or company grows bigger, you're going to have a problem to move to another environment. Also, the fact that only one person can work with the backend at any given time is a problem in a somewhat larger company.
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Quickbase
I no longer think that Quickbase is the way of the future. They do not fix major bugs in a timely manner, and are releasing basic functionality behind a paywall. I believe that Enterprise Level Tier should be given certain things, like SLAs on Support and up-time. However, as a low-code no-code platform the majority of the accounts, "builders", and users are not going to be able to justify the cost of an Enterprise Tier Plan, and won't be able to use the features that Quickbase continues to advertise.
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Pros
Claris
  • The relational database management system makes the program highly customizable to fit the needs of any product. You can add a ton of information to each record and update your inventory on a regular basis with an Excel import or manually inside of the record. It has the capability to incorporate barcoding, which can manage your available inventory with ease.
  • The scripting language allows FileMaker to automatically calculate complex algorithms automatically or generate report outs with the click of a button. This allows for greater UI, especially with active users who are not familiar with writing code. Almost all of our internal data is linked to the FileMaker database
  • The server license allows many users to update the database in real time, which is handy if your inventory is constantly changing. We have users with Macs, PCs, iPhones and handheld tablets linked to our FileMaker database and they are updating the information constantly throughout the day.
  • If you invest some time into formatting and scripting the database, there is a high ease of use for users without knowledge of any programming or FileMaker itself.
Read full review
Quickbase
  • Rapidly bring new ideas to life
  • Great authentication and authorization system out of the box
  • Connects with many major third-party services (via Pipelines)
  • Reporting and Dashboards are awesome
  • Excellent emails notification system to keep us in the loop when data changes
  • Intuitive UI for building forms and reports
  • Nice playground to test new ideas
Read full review
Cons
Claris
  • Developer features need to be beefed up - namely adding the ability to search code for a phrase or keyword and the ability to do the same in the "relationship graph" in the database.
  • Add ability for users to edit the same table record at the same time by version control.
  • Allow Filemaker Server to use more than 1 core; currently multi-processing is not supported and it can be tricky to find just the right server to support the application you've built to the fullest capacity.
Read full review
Quickbase
  • I'd like to see a link on email notices that take you directly into said notice. On an app that only has 1 or 2 email notices firing, there's no issue. However, we have some tools that are so complex that they have about 20 email notices firing at any given time based on the action users take. In this case, if we have to go in to modify a notice, we have to guess or scroll down the long list of notices to see which one we need to customize. It would be great if Quickbase had the URL of said notice somewhere at the footer of that notice so when Administrators click on it, it takes them into the exact notice they need to update.
  • When filling out or reviewing a lengthy form, I'd like to see the Save & close button, as well as a Save & next option at the bottom of the form rather than having to scroll back up to the top of those forms just to click on those choices.
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Likelihood to Renew
Claris
It it not really up to me but my opinion does have some weight in the decision and the reason I would renew my use FileMaker Pro 8.5 is because I am finally getting used to it! Now that I have been working with the program, tasks have become quicker and projects are getting done faster. File Maker Pro 8.5 really is a versatile tool and I think we are just scratching the surface with it's abilities.
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Quickbase
For our use-case of QuickBase, there really aren't any other products out there that can offer us the same out-of-the-box solutions they provide to us. We're also so integrated with it in our daily processes that to move away from it abruptly would cause mass chaos, so it's going to be renewed for at least the next several years.
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Usability
Claris
The usability rating I'm providing is for the development interface - the usability of the application you build is relative to how much effort is put into the application. Filemaker needs to roll out some features that are "modern" sooner rather than later. They do roll out new features every year, but at a slow pace. We generally get 1 new TRULY useful feature every year. They need to step it up some!
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Quickbase
Quick Base has done everything we have asked it to do and then some. Our original goal was to have one system for CRM that encompassed both the sales process and the customer management. We have gone w-a-y beyond that with analytics, project management, system bug logging, and historical effort reporting.
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Reliability and Availability
Claris
No answers on this topic
Quickbase
Once we did get Quick Base configured and customized it was reliably available when we needed it. We may have had one or two occasions when the product was inaccessible but those were few. The greatest challenge with its availability was its difficulty with integrating with our systems.
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Performance
Claris
No answers on this topic
Quickbase
Some of our tables that hold over a million records are starting to perform poorly, with some summaries taking over 20 seconds to load. This may be an indication that it is best to archive old data when reaching large volumes like this.
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Support Rating
Claris
The forums are great with lots of helpful experts and the staff monitor them to provide help where needed. There have been a couple of unique technical issues I've had to deal with that I haven't been able to get resolved so I chose to score this a 9 instead of a 10.
Read full review
Quickbase
If you utilize the community, the support is amazing. Unfortunately, I find their actual support system a bit underwhelming. They don't seem to have a great process for interacting directly with an issue and often sweep significant issues under the rug by categorizing them as "Enhancement" ideas or legacy items.
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In-Person Training
Claris
No answers on this topic
Quickbase
It is very easy to get training from their University portal and still if we don't know their, then we can ask their support too.
Read full review
Online Training
Claris
No answers on this topic
Quickbase
Quick Base already is having a separate portal of providing training to customers and it is very easy to use and updates as per the new features added in to the application
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Claris
Suggest you use an iterative R.A.D. or AGILE development approach. (i.e. rather than writing a gigantic spec for a system, then building it). FileMaker facilitates quick prototypes. Developing an example, then allowing users to "try it out" is a snap.
Read full review
Quickbase
I was not directly involved with the initial account implementation, only a bystander. For the app I directly implemented for my department only, I wish I had know to create an app diagram first. I don't remember if that was suggested. I think that would be a great help tip tool when a new app is created, to have a page with a check list of what is needed or how to get started. If you are a regular app builder, then you can bypass it or have the ability to turn it off in the app settings.
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Alternatives Considered
Claris
FileMaker is still the quickest way to go from zero to having a minimum viable working solution. Simple solutions can be built in as little as a afternoon of development. It is the only tool I am aware of which allows tech savy end users with domain knowledge to build bespoke apps for their businesses without undertaking professional software development training.
Read full review
Quickbase
Well, there's a plethora of low-code tools out on the marketplace and, you know, there's a reason that we've decided to partner with QuickBase because it has all the right balance of the ability to integrate with the ability for a citizen developer to create apps successfully. So if you look at something like Zo Ho's low-code offering, for example, yes, there are some similarities there, but they're really dependent on all of their other licensed products to get you where you want to be, where with QuickBase you have the ability to truly create something custom.
Read full review
Scalability
Claris
No answers on this topic
Quickbase
It has evolved really well with our company, but there is a hard limit to the table size that has begun to affect us and not let us grow. The table size limit is set at 500 MB and we have had to jump through quite a few hoops to be able to get by.
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Professional Services
Claris
No answers on this topic
Quickbase
For clients we use Qucik base to develop application
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Return on Investment
Claris
  • We are a more agile company because of FileMaker. A few of us who are tech-savvy enough to manage the database (but are not professional developers) can make needed adjustments to our database without having to employ an in-house developer or contract with a 3rd party. As our business processes evolve and change, it's easy to update the database to accommodate those changes.
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Quickbase
  • ROI is HUGE. Our company saved over 3.5 million in one year alone based on developments that year in Quickbase that saved time for many teams
  • Less user error - implementing automations and standardized workflows has led to less user error as was previously seen by maintaining spreadsheets or Smartsheets
Read full review
ScreenShots