I can get 20 multi-step connectors from Zapier for $20/month.
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Hard to believe anyone would buy this over Zapier. I'm assuming FMI did a Google search to see if there were competing products with much larger user bases at MUCH lower prices with MUCH higher functionality......LOL
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Not quite comparing the same thing here since the price you quote for Zapier is for a single user. Whereas CC doesn't charge per user. Plus: that Zapier plan gives you a 15-min wait time whereas CC is real-time. And that Zapier plan has a limitation to 3 premium apps.
A better comparison would be the $299 Zapier Team subscription (although you'd still have the 1-min delay - albeit no limitation on the # of zaps)
But for the record: I'm not so enthused by the 6-flow limit.
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What I've learned from the past is that math is no friend of this "greedy marketer". Seems he still couldn't work out a solid rules-of-three.
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It's good to make a realistic comparison between products, not only for pricing, but also to ensure that you get the correct product. The 15 minute wait for Zapier's introductory plans is a really simple way of saying, "Don't wait: your requests are going to the back of the queue". This ensures that their higher-value clients get prompt service. However, in practice, the queue is often short and tasks are processed in much less than 15mins.
A lot of our customers don't want or need immediate processing. Many of the tasks that are being considered for CC or Zapier were previously being put into batches and performed periodically. For them a 15min wait is not important.
Who is the "greedy marketer"?
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@WimDecorte makes a point by saying comparison with zapier may not be the best. At the same time, Claris is not the only player in the IPAAS space (see G2's listing here: Best iPaaS Software in 2020 | G2 ) and that is my takeaway from @Mac's comment vs zapier: the value proposition is not making us jump out of our seats to go and implement stuff like crazy. To limit things to something like 3 or 6 flows, means you need to target flows where you have a lot of volume (or where limited volume is very pricy to process without automation).
I am personally curious to see how it lines up against integromat.com, not only from the price angle but on the rest also. I sincerely hope the discussion (here and elsewhere) will widen to discuss the features and use cases alongside elements that distinguish Claris Connect and are exclusive to it or hard to achieve with other IPAAS.
I know that the product is not aimed specifically at FileMaker users, but I would have liked having on day one of the release one of their videos that integrates with a FileMaker database.
We will see how all this unfolds.
There'll be two blog posts on Soliant's website soon on how to trigger a flow from inside FM and how to push data into FM, including the Claris Connect on-premise agent (for when you do not want to expose your FMS to the internet).
I'm not sure that the IPaaS grid is entirely in the same space (although Claris does position it as an IPaaS). Missing from the grid for instance is a direct competitor in Microsoft's Power Automate.
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One thing is for sure: as developers we can't lose with the attention it will get. If clients start to realize how powerful these API integrations can get but decide that the continued subscription is too costly, they'll be more inclined to look for custom development.
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I agree - although I find the pricing for CC a bit crazy, the launch is certainly raising the profile of "the platform" as a whole, and that can only be a good thing.
One further note about pricing is that with Zapier, I have a single Zapier account, under which I manage whole load of 'Zaps' for my clients, and then I invoice those clients for the service(s) provided. I'm guessing that this kind of setup would not be allowable under CC?
I agree with @JamesG. I have been using Zapier with our company for years with just a single account that I automate a dozen or so zaps with. It has worked well and been VERY cost effective. As someone else mentioned, the time delay is well within the acceptable range for the type of automations I have setup.
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I would hesitate to use another platform if required integration or data flow should be immediate (as real-time as possible). It would be out of my control. Although it's quite rare that data needs to be transferred immediately. Booking is one of the domains that many times needs a real-timish data flow.
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I agree - but don't forget that the you can still get 'real timeish' functionality from Zapier by using webhooks into Filemaker Server 17+
The timing delays are only for scheduled zaps, as you'd expect.
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Do you guys know about n8n ?
This is a Free / On-premise alternative with a FileMaker Node (I created 
)
You may install it via docker on a NAS for instance
It's very powerfull but a bit more complex to use and has no support for oauth yet (coming soon)
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This is interesting. Do you have or know of or plan on making any tutorials on using n8n ("nodemation" according to their website a la K8S = Kubernetes) with FileMaker? You should definitely make a post for this utility!
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Can you elaborate on how it is different from Node-RED?
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I have no plan for this yet (as a Claris partner I should promote connect first !)
However it's really easy to deploy using docker (I installed it on a synology NAS) or by simply cloning the repo and running it through npm so you may give it a try easly.
I don't have much experience on node-red, but from what I know, node-red only includes few nodes at start, you have to craft everything by hand or install additional nodes by hand using npm which is not very user friendly, when everything is already included in n8n with build in nodes for many services
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