Here's the honest version of your options.

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, takes over 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 taking over 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 warranted.
  2. A fixed-price System Assessment — one week, ending in a written inventory, risk register, and roadmap you own.
  3. A monthly stewardship retainer sized to the system — maintenance, fixes, and a developer who answers the phone.
  4. From there, the roadmap drives what's next: a web front end, an integration, or a staged migration — your call, on your timeline.

The triage call can happen this week. Urgent breakage can usually be triaged before a full assessment finishes — stabilizing first, documenting second.

Common questions

Our old developer left no documentation at all. Is that a problem?
It's normal. The assessment exists to fix it. FileMaker solutions can be read directly — scripts, schema, relationships — by someone who has been reading them since 1990.

How fast can you take over?
The triage call can happen this week. Urgent breakage can usually be triaged before a full assessment finishes — stabilizing first, documenting 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.