macOS FileMaker 16 Pro (Advanced) vs Xcode + Core Data

[LinusR]

Hi Everyone,

Apologies if this is the wrong thread, mods please move if so.

I was wondering if anyone here could give advice on the following: I am interested in building a few databases for personal use only. As a Mac user, naturally I consider FileMaker 16 (which is, as I surprisingly noticed, popular as ever). I looked into FM and its features and it looks really nice, pretty much what I would expect to quickly build pretty db's.

The only reason I am posting here is FM's price. I have experience with programming in Obj-C and Swift (Xcode as IDE), and hence I could build the whole thing myself using Core Data. Core Data is not a database, hence there'd be a few more things to consider when building the app, and it is clear that this would take a lot longer and wouldn't necessarily look as nice. But it would be free.

Finally, I looked into FM Advanced, about which there's very little to find on the FM website. The price again makes the difference, but the Advanced version appears to provide some pretty handy tools a developer might appreciate.

Hence my questions: does anyone have any thoughts on my comments above? In particular: is FM worth the money compared to writing an app myself? Is Advanced worth the price difference taking into account the added features?

I'd be grateful for any advice.

Cheers
L

 

[Mikael H]

How much time would you spend on creating the required data structure in FM, vs how much time would it take you to write a software from scratch, possibly learning to manage a database engine like MariaDB or Postgres in a safe and secure manner, and so on?
I'm sure the latter gives you more flexibility down the line, but unless that is a requirement you'll probably save yourself quite a bit of time by going FileMaker. Depending on your needs, it may be that time is worth something to you...

 

[superscape]

Personally, I wouldn't touch FileMaker with a very long barge-poll. Last I looked it wasn't ACID compliant (admittedly that was a long while ago). Again, personally I don't like that the UI seems muddled up with the database. Lastly, I think its expensive for what it is, and better solutions exist (some free) - although I admit there's a learning curve to many of them.

The only times I've used Filemaker (long ago now) I started off thinking, "Ah, it's just a simple database that's not going to see much use - might as well just knock something quick and dirty up in FileMaker". Then a while later when you find yourself with a database that's actually being used a lot and has grown pretty big and important, you find yourself panicking and wishing you'd used something more robust from day one.

Depending on your requirements, the suggestions of MariaDB and Postgres are good ones. You might want to look at MySQL, SQLLite or MongoDB (or similar). Like I say, very much depends on your requirements.

Skills learned in any of the above databases will probably prove valuable later on whereas Filemaker is a bit niche.

Just my personal view!

 

[LinusR]

Personally, I wouldn't touch FileMaker with a very long barge-poll. Last I looked it wasn't ACID compliant (admittedly that was a long while ago). Again, personally I don't like that the UI seems muddled up with the database. Lastly, I think its expensive for what it is, and better solutions exist (some free) - although I admit there's a learning curve to many of them.

The only times I've used Filemaker (long ago now) I started off thinking, "Ah, it's just a simple database that's not going to see much use - might as well just knock something quick and dirty up in FileMaker". Then a while later when you find yourself with a database that's actually being used a lot and has grown pretty big and important, you find yourself panicking and wishing you'd used something more robust from day one.

Depending on your requirements, the suggestions of MariaDB and Postgres are good ones. You might want to look at MySQL, SQLLite or MongoDB (or similar). Like I say, very much depends on your requirements.

Skills learned in any of the above databases will probably prove valuable later on whereas Filemaker is a bit niche.

Just my personal view!

Thanks a lot for your responses, Mikael and superscape, I'll take a look at the other options first before spending a few hundred currencies on FM. Much appreciated!