FME Reviews

FME licensing presents various options, including fixed and floating licenses. Some users find costs like €15,000 annually reasonable, especially with reseller discounts. However, others express frustration over recent pricing rebranding, describing significant cost increases: from £400 per user annually to potentially over £100,000 for FME Server, based on company size and turnover. Despite price hikes, FME remains a viable enterprise solution, offering comprehensive functionalities at competitive rates compared to larger platforms.

• "FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."
• "The product's price is reasonable."
• "We used the standard licensing for our use of FME. The cost was approximately €15,000 annually. We always welcome less expensive solutions, if the solution could be less expensive it would be helpful."

FME is primarily used for ad hoc analysis, geographical data processing, and network infrastructure management. It facilitates automatic data flow, real-time event handling, and massive data transformations. Government entities utilize it for facial analysis and data quality controls. It is effective for GIS data transfer to the cloud, creating seamless processes in ArcGIS, and enabling self-service data management. Its scalability and Python integration make it versatile across various applications.

Technical support from a Belgian service is commendable. FME's assistance is described as very good, with a personalized touch, achieving a rating of five out of five. The technical support services are praised for their quality. While some have not directly interacted with Safe Software's support, no issues have been reported.

Some users found FME's initial setup easy and fast, requiring only a few hours for installation, especially FME Workbench. However, others felt the process could be challenging, particularly for those not experienced with license server setup, likening it to installing license servers from ArcGIS Pro. Having IT support facilitated faster deployment. FME Cloud simplifies server setup with an automated process, while the on-premises server might require more attention from IT personnel.

FME handles extensive datasets effectively and is considered highly scalable by users. Some organizations observe its limits and anticipate needing additional engines for better performance. Batch processing has demonstrated scalability for various needs. Users highlight its enterprise suitability, noting performance depends on proper computational resource allocation. Many users rate FME extremely high and benefit significantly from it within their operations, with no need to partition large datasets indicating robust scaling capabilities.

Users regard FME as highly stable, experiencing minimal issues even post-upgrades. The stability is praised in versions like 2022, rated eight out of ten, while 2023 suffers slightly, rated five due to updates affecting performance. Several users appreciate utilizing different versions based on interface preferences. Stability perception varies by the version, with many favoring the older iteration for long-term reliability.