From university thesis to strategic asset : my use of FME
What do you like best about the product?
Having used FME Workbench for five years, I can confidently say it has become the cornerstone of my professional work in geomatics. My journey with FME began during my final university thesis. I was immediately struck by its unique power to handle seemingly incompatible data formats. What started as a powerful tool for an academic project has since evolved into my primary, daily software now that I have grown into a Subject Matter Expert in GIS and Cartography for my company. FME is no longer just a "converter"; it is the engine driving our entire data workflow.
Its true strength lies in its unparalleled interoperability. It truly is the "Swiss Army knife" of GIS, seamlessly bridging the gap between GIS, IT, and BI systems. FME handles everything we throw at it, whether it's obscure CAD files, complex SGBD databases like PostGIS, web services, or simple flat files. Beyond just moving data, its visual ETL capabilities in the Workbench are profound. We can design, test, and implement highly complex data validation, cleansing, and enrichment routines using its vast library of Transformers. This power extends directly to automation. The ability to create a robust workspace once and then deploy it has eliminated countless hours of repetitive, manual data management.
What do you dislike about the product?
The worst flaw of FME Workbench surely lies in its ability to always attract us even when it is simpler to do the operation manually....
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
For a company like mine, FME Workbench is a strategic asset for streamlining the entire field-to-finish data lifecycle. Its core value begins with integrating raw field data from diverse survey equipment, such as GPR, GNSS, and total stations. FME can automatically consume these various proprietary formats, transform them, and load them into a centralized GIS database. Critically, it automates the essential data quality process. workspaces can be designed to validate network topology, check attribute completeness (like depth or material type), and flag geometric anomalies. This ensures that all data captured during network detection or topographic surveys is standardized, accurate, and reliable before it is used for client deliverables.
Beyond initial processing, FME serves as the crucial bridge between data and its clients specific requirements. It excels at automating the creation of deliverables in any format or data model demanded by clients, or public municipalities, ensuring perfect compliance with standards such as PCRS. This interoperability extends to high-value services like 3D modeling and BIM. FME can "extrude" 2D network polylines into 3D pipe models using their Z value and diameter attributes, and furthermore, it can convert this rich GIS data directly into BIM compatible formats like IFC, integrating "as-built" network data directly into larger digital twin or construction models.
Flexible and Powerful Data Integration Tool
What do you like best about the product?
I really like how versatile FME is. It lets me handle everything from simple data transformations to more complex automation. It supports a wide range of data sources, which makes working with spatial data much easier. Some workflows take a bit of time to get used to, but overall it’s straightforward to implement. The support team is helpful whenever I need it. I use FME frequently because of its many features, and it integrates well with other systems, which makes my work smoother.
What do you dislike about the product?
The licensing cost has increased recently, even though some functionality can now be achieved faster using AI-generated scripts than with FME itself.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
FME solves a wide range of data integration and automation challenges. It allows me to schedule and run workflows automatically, transforming and moving data between systems like PostGIS, ArcGIS and M-Files. This saves a huge amount of manual work. The ability to run daily, weekly, or even more frequent jobs reliably keeps our datasets up to date and supports smooth operations across multiple projects.
Impressive Data Interoperability and No-Code Flexibility
What do you like best about the product?
With support for over 450 data formats, this tool offers impressive data interoperability. Its visual no-code interface makes it accessible, while the powerful spatial and non-spatial transformation features add significant flexibility. The automation capabilities are robust, and everything is backed by an active and supportive community.
What do you dislike about the product?
The recent adjustments to the licensing cost, along with the move to a single edition of FME, have caught my attention.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Developing impactful solutions across a wide range of fields, such as infrastructure, defence, aerospace, public health, renewable energy, utilities, telecommunications (Broadband), and spatial data platforms, has been a significant focus. This breadth of experience demonstrates a commitment to addressing complex challenges in various sectors.
Intuitive Platform with Powerful Options and Supportive Community
What do you like best about the product?
The platform is easy to understand in the basic principles but contains a lot of options you could consider to process your data with. FME Form which is the core product of Safe includes many data formats for reading and writing. Combined with the many transformers available to the user, this is a quite powerful tool for me as a GIS Specialist.
Furthermore there is an active user community which almost always has answers to the questions you have.
Beside that, because of the way the platform is designed it's not that hard to explain models you have built to other people you are cooperating with.
What do you dislike about the product?
There is quite some options and settings available. As a beginner I could imagine that this feels a bit overwhelming.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The FME platform helps me automate data analyses. Tasks that would otherwise require a lot of manual work can now be turned into a model within a few hours and thus be automated. The models are also reusable — if the same questions come up again, I can easily rerun a model and deliver the results. It saves me a lot of time since I don’t have to do any manual work, and on top of that, building the scripts gives me a sense of enjoyment in my work.
My favorite piece of software + platform, ever.
What do you like best about the product?
My biggest joy of using FME is the ability for me to do what I need to do without having to involve a developer - a task that takes time, planning, and money.
I can connect to absolutely anything, do 'anything' to the data, and shoot it out where I need it - a file, database, API, etc. The flexibility allows me to be nimble and agile in how I work. To my company, it makes me look like a genius.
Also worth mentioning is the team at Safe are great - super responsive to support requests, and there's a great community of users as well online.
What do you dislike about the product?
I feel the UI of Form is a big stumbling block to success. For a long time it felt it was geared to the super-technical user, and so getting others on board with it is an overwhelming task.
The costs of using the products have also significantly increased over time. I feel like every year there's a new sales process or account managers, and so I'm starting to get nervous around renewal time - it's not predictable anymore.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It's saving me time and money - something that is hard to come by.
Extensive format support and reliable integration enhance data management while new pricing model requires reassessment
What is our primary use case?
The use cases for FME are mainly integration to the GE Smallworld product. GE Smallworld is a GE product, and we are using it to integrate with other third-party products into GE Smallworld and ADMS systems.
The feature regarding automation capacity for scheduling data processing tasks is mainly used by one of our customers, Vodacom, and they are doing the automated exchange. That is very useful for them. It's only one of my customers that's using it. That's their business requirement to do real-time data exchange.
What is most valuable?
From my reseller perspective, the best features in FME are the ease of operation and the fact that it works. They are developing the necessary plugins to third-party products, so it's easy to use and very well-developed and usable.
The extensive format support, which covers over 400 file formats in the product, is essentially one of the reasons why we are using it.
Regarding the advanced spatial data capabilities, I don't know the technical details directly, as I'm more on the sales side. FME manages large volumes of spatial data in sectors such as GIS and environmental analysis effectively. It performs well and doesn't have issues in managing big loads of data.
What needs improvement?
I haven't had any input or requirements from any customers that are not currently covered, so I don't have any additional needs that were identified or raised to me.
Regarding pricing, with the model changes that they've implemented a while back, it actually made it more expensive to use, especially on the server side. They changed the licensing model, and that made customers think it is overpriced. Some customers were actually looking at alternatives. Pricing with the model changes was perceived negatively.
I work primarily with enterprise customers, Vodacom, Eskom, so it's tier-one customers. For small customers, this solution is a bit too expensive. They don't really use it and just do direct integration on smaller implementations. This is basically used by tier-one customers.
FME is still able to save time and money for clients. It's still a good investment.
Regarding similar products to FME, GE developed a product called Data Fabric. That is a real-time operational integration platform, Data Fabric Network Connect, which is a GE Grid OS product. It is actually more expensive than FME, but the purpose is different as it's operational. The vendor in this case is GE, and it's a company that we bought that used to be called Greenbird. In current use scenarios, FME is still leading compared to Data Fabric. The GE product has a different application.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been reselling FME for more than 10 years. It's a very long time.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I'm not aware of any glitches or stability issues that customers are experiencing, so I would say FME is fairly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Even though it is on-premises, the solution is for the specific purpose that they are using it, so they don't really scale up or down quite often. In the cases where it's used, it is not an issue. If it were hosted with a different pricing model where you can quickly scale up and down, it might have different requirements. In the case where we use it, it will not necessarily make a huge difference.
How are customer service and support?
I'm happy with the technical support from Safe Software for FME.
Automating geospatial data workflows facilitates seamless cloud transfers
What is our primary use case?
FME is used to transfer GIS data from either on-premise into the cloud or between the primary servers and disaster recovery. We use it in various different ways.
What is most valuable?
FME is spatially aware and understands how to deal with the conversion of spatial objects and their attributes. It is a well-established product for handling geospatial data, transfer, and ETL processes. It helps automate workflows for GIS customers, making it a standard in the industry.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used the solution for years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In my experience, FME handles the largest datasets we work with. I have never heard anyone comment that they had to break it up into pieces, indicating that it is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I have not directly dealt with Safe Software's customer service or technical support. However, I have heard of no problems with their support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have always used FME. We did not switch from anything.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are looking at the possibility of using Glue instead of FME, using the native AWS product.
What other advice do I have?
The overall rating for FME is eight out of ten, and I prefer the feedback to be anonymous. My job title is Senior Solutions Architect.
Intuitive with great integrations and excellent spatial features
What is our primary use case?
Primary use cases include: creating automatic data flow processes, enabling users to self-serve their data needs, and handling real-time events. It is a fault-tolerant, scalable multi-tier solution, so it has backup facilities. One can use a multi-server setup with a database. We can download data, start processes, update databases, send messages, tweets, push notifications, and almost everything in a few clicks. With spatial data, it has almost no competitors.
How has it helped my organization?
FME handles all ETL processes, refreshes data, and produces reports and dashboards.
Automated data enrichment and analysis using the setups we use are great for just doing the jobs by hand.
We easily share data and workspaces among users in a secure setup with managed authorizations, connected to Active Directory.
There is even a hosted solution, where one does not have to worry about having the appropriate server environment. All that is required is selecting a platform version, data storage region, performance type, and need for data space and ignite!
What is most valuable?
All spatial features are unrivaled, and the possibility to execute them based on a scheduled trigger, manual, e-mail, Websocket, tweet, file/directory change or virtually any trigger is most valuable.
The integration between FME Flow and FME Form is super as is its integration with scripting like Python is superb.
It is a really intuitive product; just type anything in the canvas and methods for processing pop up. Data is processed intelligently, though for optimal dataflow some human thinking has to be done.
What needs improvement?
Improvements could be made to mapping presentations. Though there are functions available for this, it is a complex and broad area that is not covered to the fullest extent. There is a presentation module, however, it is in no way a real GIS.
For now, there is the FME Forms product to enter detailed data mapping setups, which is a great tool. However, having an online medium for this would be great. In a future version, it would be great to have a website where you can log in and create your workspace to do the detailed data processing and publish it to the FME Flow environment where it can be used to participate in the general data processing setups.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using FME Flow, a.k.a. FME Server, now for 15 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I never got a blue page, however, that might be on my side.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Performance is where you put the computational power. Do not drag large datasets over the internet if you just need the total number of addresses in a country.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did some work with Azure Functions, Databricks, and AWS Web Services. It is just for historical and pricing reasons that I did not switch to AWS or Azure platforms.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
FME is the nicer and cheaper platform that supports all the functions of larger platforms.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I did not evaluate other options. I rolled in and fell in love with the platform.
Powerful geographic data manipulation, conversion and visualization tool
What do you like best about the product?
The FME platform has many built-in transformations from one format to another. Also, FME has split out common functions in to standalone tools.
What do you dislike about the product?
As with any software meant to munge data, FME Desktop will seem confusing and even opaque to the new user. For example, it is not immediately obvious how to access custom data in an imported data structure.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Using FME Platform I am able to quickly and easily convert and simplify government boundary datasets into a format suitable for my own applications.
FME - Swiss knife for the spatial data transformation
What do you like best about the product?
FME is an easy to use tool to create ETL(extract-transform-load) workflows for spatial and non-spatial data. It handles enormous number of spatial and non-spatial data formats, so you could transform almost anything-to-anything. Most common formats including shapefiles, ESRI file geodatabases, spatial data in various relational databases. You even can automatically post tweets based on your data. Besides the format conversion, other important feature is data transformation capabilities, so you can perform complex spatial transformations, like buffering, subsetting, spatial queries, joins, attribute calculations - almost anything that you can do using the conventional GIS, like ArcGIS or QGIS but in an automated way.
What do you dislike about the product?
Product is expensive, no way to run the FME workflows for free.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Various ETL projects, such as tiling scanned raster maps, and converting the data between various formats.
