See why developers and non-programmers are switching to Alpha
Five. Unlike FileMaker, Alpha Five Version 8 offers Desktop, Web,
and hybrid database capabilities in one development tool. The
extensibility and customizability of Alpha Five ultimately gives
you the confidence you can create any custom desktop or
web solution you need.
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Alpha Five |
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FileMaker |
Relative cost |
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Build complete web applications with security
and built-in web reporting without programming |
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Limited and form oriented |
Full-featured programming language to provide ultimate
flexibility |
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Multi user developer runtime |
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Time to sort one million record SQL database |
9 seconds |
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5400 Seconds |
Web Support |
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Limited |
Scalable web server solutions with failover
and load sharing |
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User, group, and object level security |
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Action scripting enabling you to easily and
rapidly build fully featured applications without
programming |
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Limited |
Rapid application development utilizing
genies and extensible functions |
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Limited |
Multi-pane script editor |
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Powerful and flexible tools to improve efficiency and effectiveness of data entry |
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Limited |
Over 2000 extensible functions and methods
with auto complete technology, a profiler and a debugger |
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Highly flexible lookup implementation (including conditional lookups and cascading lookups) |
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Includes 'double entry field rules' so that, for
example, you can require that credit card numbers be entered
twice for accuracy on large orders |
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Automatic posting rules (e.g., allowing you to automatically deplete inventory when items ordered) |
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Allows you to look up data from different tables depending on the value in a field (e.g., looking up different pricing tables for government,
corporate, or educational customers) |
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Rich array of capitalization rules to correct case |
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Limited |
Automate unattended, scheduled backups |
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Requires upgrade |
Remote database administration |
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Requires upgrade |
Powerful and flexible report writer |
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Less flexible / powerful |
Uses industry standard data format (.dbf) |
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Rich set of options and controls for
data entry, display, and edit on the web (e.g, selectively hide information from staff that management should see
or change - such as salary) |
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Limited |
Full email and mass personalized email merge capabilities |
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Limited |
Data encryption |
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Requires upgrade |
Run scripts from menus |
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Requires upgrade |
Menu customization, custom tooltips, custom right-click context menus |
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Requires upgrade |
Data easily accessed without having to go through application |
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Includes 'double entry field rules' so that, for
example, you can require that credit card numbers be entered
twice for accuracy on large orders |
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Popup calendars, calculators, SMTP mail, menu controls |
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3rd party add on |
Optionally use Windows for user
authentication |
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Requires upgrade |
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