Here are your real options, laid out straight.

Option 1: Do nothing and hope.

The system will keep running — until a macOS or Windows update, a FileMaker Server version change, an expiring plugin license, or a hosting migration breaks something. Then you're searching for help during an outage instead of before one. This is the most expensive option; it just bills you later.

Option 2: Replace the whole system.

Possible, and sometimes right — but a system that took 15 years to shape around your business does not get rebuilt in a 6-month project for the price anyone quotes you up front. Rebuild projects on undocumented systems routinely double, because half the requirements exist only inside the old system's logic. If nobody can read that logic, the rebuild is guesswork.

Option 3: Bring in a new FileMaker developer as steward.

Someone documents what exists, picks up maintenance, fixes the risky parts, and gives you a real answer to "what should we do long-term" — extend it, hold it steady, or migrate in stages. This is the cheapest path to safety, and it keeps every other option open.

What picking up an orphaned system actually looks like.

This is what I do:

  1. A free 30-minute triage call — you describe the situation, I tell you what I'd look at and whether a full assessment is worth doing.
  2. A System Assessment — $250 or $500, about a week, ending in a written list of what you have, what's at risk, and what to do next, in your name.
  3. A monthly stewardship retainer sized to the system — maintenance, fixes, and a developer who answers the phone.
  4. From there, the plan decides what's next: web screens, a connection to other software, or a staged move off FileMaker — your call, on your timeline.

The triage call can happen this week. Anything urgent can usually be patched before the assessment finishes: steady it first, write it down second.

Common questions

Our old developer left no documentation at all. Is that a problem?
It's normal. The assessment exists to fix it. A FileMaker system can be read directly, its scripts, its structure and how its tables connect, by someone who has been reading them since 1990.

How fast can you take over?
The triage call can happen this week. Anything urgent can usually be patched before the assessment finishes: steady it first, write it down second.

We're not sure we want to stay on FileMaker.
You don't have to decide that today, and you shouldn't decide it during an emergency. Stewardship keeps the system safe while the assessment tells you what staying, extending, or leaving actually costs.