FileMaker Cloud vs Server Hosting

Overview

Say a five person team asks where their FileMaker file should live. No IT staff, one office, and an internet line that fails now and then. That last detail decides more than the price list does.

Here is how to work through it.

What the two words mean

FileMaker Server is software you install yourself. It runs on a machine you own or rent. That machine is yours to look after.

FileMaker Cloud is a hosted service. Claris owns the machine and runs the software on it. You get a web address and sign in.

Same database. Same layouts. Different owner of the box.

What you take on with Server

• you apply the operating system updates
• you set up the backups and test them
• you renew the security certificate
• you plan and run every version upgrade

None of that is difficult. It is just work, and it repeats forever. One person has to be responsible for it, by name.

Cloud moves that list to Claris. You give up some control in return. You cannot install other software on the machine. You follow their upgrade schedule.

The question that decides it

Ask who will check the backup on a Tuesday morning, eighteen months from now.

If you can name that person, and they have the time, Server gives you more control. Speed on a local office network can be very good too. And if the internet line fails, people in the office keep working.

If you cannot name that person, Cloud is the safer answer. The maintenance still happens. It just does not depend on someone remembering.

For a five person team with no IT staff, that is the whole decision.

Which one are you running, and would you pick the same again today?