Love me some FileMaker. Just quit trying to Appleize it and give me options!
September 13, 2017

Love me some FileMaker. Just quit trying to Appleize it and give me options!

Joel Brache | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with FileMaker Pro

FileMaker is used across our entire organization. The original use for FileMaker was as a timecard database. Over the years the use of FileMaker has grown to cover many different parts of our business. We manage all the graphics that are produced in FileMaker. We manage projects in FileMaker. We create packing lists and keep track of shipments in FileMaker. FileMaker touches almost every aspect of our business.
  • FileMaker can be easily customized so that it can be expanded to cover additional roles in a company or to just do simple layout changes.
  • FileMaker can be easily picked up by new programmers/developers. The software is designed in such a way that a half day's worth of training can get a new person started building their own databases.
  • FileMaker has a large community of users that do a fantastic job of supporting folks who are new to FileMaker. There is considerable support, samples, and videos on the web for anyone starting out.
  • There are a lot of professional developers located around the country that can help with any FileMaker development needs. They have always been more than friendly and willing to offer help and suggestions. They have the heart of teachers.
  • I think the folks developing FileMaker are true Apple enthusiasts at heart, so a lot of little issues that crop up for Windows users are not address very quickly. It also seems like the Windows version gets treated as secondary, which is odd considering that the majority (95+%) of people using FileMaker use it in a Windows environment.
  • Considering my point above, I would also point out that a lot of how FileMaker works seems to be driven by a small number of people who feel like the software should behave a certain way. Rather than offering users the ability to customize how they want to use the software, global changes are made that force users to adapt to a new way working that is opposite of how they have worked for many years. Changes like this have driven me nuts in the past and make me wish that they would just allow customization of how users work instead of forcing one particular point of few.
  • FileMaker developers are not inexpensive. If you need to bring in help from a third party, expect to pay $100/hr. at a minimum. There are a lot of free resources, local clubs/groups, and places to get free advice, but expect to pay a lot for professional help if you need it. There just aren't enough developers around the world to drive the price down.
  • We recovered our investment a long time ago. The value that FileMaker brings is huge. We cut down the amount of time it took to create, manage, and track timecards.
  • FileMaker was able to ramp up to cover additional aspects of our business very quickly. We can still, to this day, develop new reports within a day or two so that managers can see new aspects of our company and meet their objectives.
The most direct competitor to FileMaker Pro is Microsoft Access. If you understand the way Microsoft Access works, then you can probably get more functionality and features in Microsoft Access. With that said though, FileMaker is much easier to learn and develop in. I tried jumping in to Access after a decade of using FileMaker and concepts were just not as simple to grasp as they were in FileMaker. We also use Microsoft SQL server. SQL is great for heavy duty databases, but it's just not as easily configurable or as easy to develop in as FileMaker.
FileMaker is great for start-up businesses, small business, and even mid sized businesses. I would say that FileMaker is well suited for small to medium sized environments (1-200 people). You could definitely go bigger than that, but the level of expertise and planning significantly increases when you do that. Because FileMaker doesn't scale very well with really large companies, I would avoid using it for large companies who want a solution that goes across a large amount of employees.