Hi, I agree especially with your 7th point, in real life things are seldomly just black or white. > 1. MapServer is generally better when dealing with WMS, while GeoServer deals better with WFS. Well, they have some differences in WMS but I wouldn't say one is better than another. I agree partly when it comes to WFS, at least it is easier to set up Geoserver WFS so that ready made WFS clients are willing to discuss with it. However, I add some conditions - I have not played a lot with Mapserver WFS so I do not know all the tricks. - I have felt that Mapserver WFS works quite nice when I send requests through a browser or wget ot something, and most problems are due to WFS clients which do not want to parse the gml. Clients tend to be over-sensible for my mind. - Unfortunately that is a common phenomena, clients developed against deegree WFS do not work properly against Geoserver WFS or Mapserver WFS and so on. > 2. A big difference is that GeoServer supports WFS-T, that it Transactional WFS (editing of feature services on the client side), while MapServer don't. - That's true. > 4. MapServer is a more mature project (1996), while GeoServer is a bit more recent (2003). They are both mature enough for me. > 5. GeoServer has a web tool administration that eases configuration. That is also true. There used to be a MapLab application alongside Mapserver and that helped me to take my first steps with Mapserver but now it is gone. I believe that without MapLab I wouldn't have started to play with Mapserver ever. > 6. MapServer has without any doubt a very powerful cartography system, providing data under dynamic vectors with high quality Mapserver may have more advanced cartographical features but Geoserver can look good also. Creating good looking cartography is an artistic job. Geoserver is using SLD for styling which is the OGC standard way. > 7. None of them is better or worse. The development objectives are different. > 8. PHP Mapscript for Mapserver, which provides a powerful scripting interface for PHP programmers. For Java programmers, Geoserver might be a better choice I believe that Geoserver does not really offer the same kind of possibilities to build interactive server side application with scripting. However, quite a lot can be done by making a client to combine WMS GetMap, WMS GetFeatureInfo and WFS requests. I add a few other differencies which I have faced myself. 9. Text based mapfile vs xml. For a user whose first sight on a computer screen was a green DOS:> prompt, reading and writing text based mapfiles may feel easier than xml stuff in the data_dir of Geoserver. 10. The same text keen users may prefer writing Geoserver CQL filters (see for example http://lyceum.massgis.state.ma.us/wiki/doku.php?do=export_xhtml&id=cql) when testing http GET queries instead of OGC standard filters buried inside SLD_BODY. On the other hand, Mapserver offers same kind of possibilities with variable substitution. 11. For mapserver a mapfile means a service. Geoserver is in running one WMS/WFS/WCS service for all users. Layers can be filtered by using the security subsystem, but it is not at all as flexible than creating separate mapfiles for different users or user groups. 12. Geoserver has an installer that installs the server, demo data, demo applications, and graphical user interface for administrating the server. What is best is that nightly builds are also available, and Windows users can achieve and install them with ease. It is about the same as getting a new MS4W version every day. -Jukka Rahkonen-
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