Topic: Comparing SME7 and ClarkConnect

[soprom]

I'm comparing both solutions and would appreciate feedback from SME7 users...  It appears that:

SME7 has : (not found in CC)
- no fees
- unlimited mailboxes
- multiple virtual domains
- better community
- Content filtering (contrib)

CC free adds :
- groupware based on cyrus  
- Intrusion prevention
- Bandwidth shaping
- Banner ad blocking
- Content filtering
- Bandwidth manager
- Peer-to-peer manager
- Reports smtp, web proxy, web server

CC-paied adds :
- unlimited mailboxes in Office, 10 in Enterprise (?!!)
- Managed/Dynamic VPN
- DMZ support
- 1-to-1 NAT support

Some features in CC-paied are not really discriminating since a GPL firewall can do most of it. I feel that the main differences are:

- SME7 has better licencing and community support
- SME7 lacks a good groupware support like Kolab
- SME7 combined with a firewall (ipcop/m0n0wall/pfsense...) provides about the same services as CC-paied

Comments on this are very welcome!

[guest22]

SME7:

- 100% GPL
- A zillion contribs, ranging from phpapps to LTSP
- Not only better community support, but GREATER!
- Well thought out and proven inner workings

Whatever you choose, it's about what you really need. There are many distro's out there, and 1 will fit your needs.

guest

[duncan]

SME has a good deal more user contributed (integrated) packages.

SME was miles ahead of CC 3.2. 4.0 seems to have caught up - however - a limit of 10 mailboxes and the end of Virtual domains pretty much kills it.

[duncan]

Oh - And the webconfig thingy is painfully slow on CC. Walk off and "grab a cuppa" slow. I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with license checking.

[addodge]

I have CC 3.2 running at work right now.  We use it with our 2nd cable
modem and put machines that we are cleaning up viruses and spyware on it.  
I also have a sme7 on our backup dsl (cable goes down at the worst times but is overall faster when its working)
A couple of things I have noticed are
1: CC's caching seems to be alot better than sme7.  Where i notice it the most is windows udpates.  Even with the new bits format for windows update cc works very well.
2:  CC's interface is slower than sme's
3.  CC community sucks compaired to sme's
4:  I really like the fact that CC has the built in content filtering panel that is very easy to use and free.

I am not thrilled with the shared folder capability of either especially when it comes to permissions for windows clients but I guess some of that is my lack of understanding.  I also tend to use sme as a firewall/fileserver only.  I normally dont make it a mail/web server or domain controller.

I would really like to try out CC 4.0 but have not had time to do so.  I hope this helps give you a little more perspective.

Andy

[pippin]

Defenetly SME but i use Smoothwall as a firewall though
More community on those forums too.
And i like it simple when choosing firewall and dont like any other services on a firewall

[soprom]

Thank you all for your comments!

[Ryan483]

Good comparison. I thought about trying CC 4.0 because I would love the groupware/outlook sync, but I have a several domains so SME it is. Yes CC can do virtual domains but SME is much better at it. SME will be perfect for me as soon as it has groupware/outlook sync built in. I don't care about the routing as I have a separate router system for that.

[mrjhb3]

SME will be perfect for me as soon as it has groupware/outlook sync built in.

This is not a function of SME per se, but rather a function of the horde framework.  When the horde team releases the support for it, then hopefully SME will get it soon after.  If you are in need of this now, then you can install the CVS versions of the products and test it.  At horde.org there is a syncml mailing list that you can join as well.

John

[Ryan483]

Thanks John, I'm aware that this is a horde development. I will be waiting until it's included with SME to utilize it.

[gbentley]

> SME will be perfect for me as soon as it has groupware/outlook sync built in.


Is this anywhere near becoming a reality on SME ?

Just wondered ....