<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">Hi,<br><br>There are differences, like (as you note below) if you require WFS-T then mapserver will not be of much use. Most differences are due to the java vs cgi underlying approaches. The config gui for geoserver is nice, but a bit of experience scribbling (or cut'n pasting) mapfiles means the gui is not that big a difference (IMHO)<br><br>The fundamental difference for me is that every mapserver mapfile effectively instantiates a new OGC service provider with its own set of layers, geoserver, however, is a single monolithic service providing all defined layers in the one URL.<br><br> I want a single server providing lots of custom WMS/WFS services, from mostly PostGIS databases, but also raster tilesets, shapefiles, etc... Mapserver provides this (at present) far more easily than geoserver - so my choice is simple.<br><br>Also, last time I looked,
Mapserver works more effectively than Geoserver with PostGIS. For example, the mapserver pre-processor with variable substitution allows me to provide a mapfile with a single layer, say querying a table of recorded species locations with 1200 species, in a single query: " ... where species ='%SPP%' ...". The URL querying the service can pass in the value mapserver will use in place of SPP when the query is passed to Postgis.<br><br>So a single query (layer) in a mapfile provides access to 1200 available layers. AFAIK, geoserver cannot provide this sort of functionality & flexibility with both embedded SQL queries specifying a layer content & runtime variable substitution.<br><br>Those are the differences that in my case make mapserver more appropriate. Future versions of geoserver may tip the balance :-)<br><br>HTH,<br> <br> Brent Wood<br><br><br>--- On <b>Thu, 4/15/10, mani ., <i><mani2604@gmail.com></i></b>
wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: mani ., <mani2604@gmail.com><br>Subject: [mapserver-users] Mapserver vs Geoserver<br>To: mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org<br>Date: Thursday, April 15, 2010, 6:07 PM<br><br><div id="yiv1021766584"><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Hi everyone,</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> Well I've been working on Mapserver for a couple of weeks now. Now I was supposed to checkout Geoserver too.. I was wondering if anyone who has worked on both of </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">them could help me figure out with a point or two as of how mapserver is superior to Geoserver... I've got a few points gathered.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">-=- Plz fill me in with any thing that comes to your mind. I really wanna the differences , be it the basic things, simplicity or complexity or whatever..............</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Thanks,</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br>
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Mapserver && Geoserver</span></span></p>
<pre><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">1.</span><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MapServer is generally better when dealing with WMS, while GeoServer deals better with WFS.</span></span></span></pre>
<pre style=""><strong><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">2</span></span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. 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.</span></pre>
<pre style=""><strong><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">3</span></span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Mapserver works with CGI, GeoSever with J2EE. That may entail some advantage to GeoServer, since some companies don’t want to work with CGI.</span></pre>
<pre style=""><strong><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">4</span></span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. MapServer is a more mature project (1996), while GeoServer is a bit more recent (2003).</span></pre>
<pre style=""><strong><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">5</span></span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. GeoServer has a web tool administration that eases configuration.</span></pre>
<pre style=""><strong><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">6</span></span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. MapServer has without any doubt a very powerful cartography system, providing data under dynamic vectors with high quality</span></pre>
<pre style=""><strong><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">7</span></span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. None of them is better or worse. The development objectives are different.</span></pre>
<pre style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">8.</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> PHP Mapscript for Mapserver, which provides a powerful scripting interface for PHP programmers. For Java programmers, Geoserver might be a better choice</span></span></span></pre>
<pre><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></pre>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span class="HTMLPreformattedChar"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p>
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