A couple of years ago I had a new client and tried to put them on Claris Cloud... but so many things didn't work I had to go through a whole process to move them to a host.
I'm wondering if Claris Cloud Hosting has gotten any better. Does anyone use it for anything?
I strongly recommend fmCloud.fm much better then Claris FileMaker Cloud from our experience ...
$59/mo for WebDirect, 30 GB, and 8 GB RAM?
Why not just get an AWS instance, yes a bit more expensive, but without all the restrictions?
I have a 150 GB disk (you can expand almost limitlessly), 16 GB RAM, and the full FMS installation with all the nice tools. Full control. Up to 256 databases, the FMS limit.
Really not difficult to set up, either.
No criticism of those choosing FileMaker canned hosting like fmCloud, I was just wondering why.
@OliverBarrett They're jacking up the licensing cost for one of my school clients with a very limited budget and are offering some special plan that saves them $2,500 a year, but they talk about 25 users, and then 500 concurrent users.
The school didn't have any more details and it's not making sense to me, so they're going to set up a call with me and the Claris rep to figure it out. In the past they offered a significant discount to another edu client to use their hosting, and I tried it and everything broke. I just wanted to know what's viable before walking into this meeting.
Yeah I use FMPHost.com and they've been pretty good (it's a toss-up... one of their techs is grumpy and sloppy but mostly fine, the other is great). I've been with them for 8 years or so and fairly happy, no need to change, unless Claris is putting the screws down on this one client due to cost...
I don't use FileMaker Cloud and don't intend to use or recommend it in the foreseeable future, unless, perhaps, if you are an American entity.
Reason 1 - law: Claris is a US corporation. Claris can be compelled to turn over the contents of any of its servers to US authorities, even those located outside the USA. There is little to nothing a non-US court of law can do to prevent this. I don't like this one and I am guessing neither does Claris.
Reason 2 - limitations: FileMaker Cloud comes with limitations to authentication, certificates (edge cases, but hey), plug-ins (or lack thereof), ODBC/JDBC, ESS and CWP. Am I missing any?
Reason 3 - cost: In the USA, a year's worth of FileMaker Cloud for five people, including license, costs $2 700. One can get more for a third less from other hosting providers.
Hope this helps!
Note: I am part of the fmcloud.fm team so I am somewhat biased here.
I have had a few clients on Cloud. It's a great fit for them. It's cost-effective and dead simple. They don't worry about hardware issues. Everything just works.
@bdbd mentions limitations and costs. In New Zealand the market isn't competitive and the Claris price point is favourable.
Depending on your needs, the limitations will get in your way, or be a benefit. Many clients don't need plug-ins, nor any of the alphabet soup of connectors so they aren't missed. When connections are needed they can easily be done via oData or Data API and that's worked really well.
I'm a fan.