vmsACARS Vs smartACARS

[Vahid]

Dear all,
 

Please assist me in making a decision:

Please tell me your experience and feedback of using one of the ACARS (smartACARS or vmsACARS ) who used these two tools?

What are the disadvantages and advantages?
Have you ever any problem with FS2020?

Regards,
Vahid NZ

[ProAvia]

vmsACARS works with phpVMS v7

smartCARS presently does NOT work with phpVMS v7

 

If you are using phpVMS v7, vmsACARS is the only present solution.

 

Everyone has problems of some sort with MSFS - after all, it's still an alpha product.

 

[DisposableHero]

We had lots of problems with MsFs 2020 ... And will continue having them for maybe a year or more  And most of the problems we were/are/will be facing are not vmsAcars related, but directly caused by Asobo/Ms itself. Like assigning 5 letter codes to imaginary airports, not allowing to read scenery data, not allowing 3rd party apps to read aircraft data etc etc. As it develops, all will be solved (i hope)

 

SmartCARS currently have no advantages for v7 'cause it is not compatible at all. But if we imagine it works (with its current form) then main disadvantages will be;

 

1. Not working with v7

2. It is expensive

3. It does not offer flight save/resume option without a subscription

 

On the other hand, compared to SmartCARS vmsAcars does not have eye candy or ear candy features (yet) like custom sound sets being played during your flight , or a chat feature , an online radio etc and just a little bit limited maybe (this depends on the sim and addons used though, not a fact for me)

 

As @ProAvia mentioned, vmsAcars has the biggest advantage for v7

 

1. It works with v7

2. It is developed by the same person developing phpvms

3. Cheaper

4. Does not consume cpu/gpu/ram resources compared to others

 

So, if you want to stick with v7, then your only option is vmsAcars unless you are capable of developing your own

[Nabeel]

vmsACARS also has rules/points for deductions and will eventually have a way to program your own rules using Lua. I don't want to bloat it with eye/ear candy either, I'm keeping it streamlined and doing what it does really well

[Fabiett996]

Having both, I can say that VMSacars is clearly superior to SmartCars, much lighter, easy and intuitive, in addition to the functions seen above

[Simssmith]

Quick write up for those interesting in this topic. Our VA went through a research phase before settling for PhpVMS7 + VMSAcars. 

 

Here are the main reasons behind it.

 

SmartCars is well known however we found out that it doesn't support phpVMS 7 yet so we must use phpVMS 5.
phpVMS 5.x is a none starter because it is outdate and won't run on supported version of OS/PHP etc.  This leave a potential security hole. 

That drove us to phpVMS 7.  We got a trial version of VMSAcars client to use it with https://demo.phpvms.net/ .  We did a lot of testing and

-It worked with FSX/P3D

-It worked with MSFS2020

-It worked with X-Plane

-Everything we needed are being captured in vmsAcars from the simulator. 

-It doesn't require users to subscribe to get additional feature.

-My VA is on discord so chat/radio were not needed that comes with Smartcars.

 

What convince us to proceed is actually the phpVMS discord. We saw how frequently phpVMS and ACARS client are being patched multiple times a week!  TDI doesn't offer such frequent patches.  Because the main author of phpVMS is also coding the ACARS, they can add new feature and changes as needed much faster.  Their Discord is full of people helping each other out far superior. 

 

We got phpVMS7 and purchased vmsAcars and went live with our VA.  Everything in our VA is going smooth even though the software is labeled as beta. In fact it is far more stable then many live products in the market.  

 

Feel free to message me. Hopefully this help. 

 

[Vahid]

Thank you everyone to discuss and share your idea to answer my question.

 

On 4/7/2021 at 1:22 AM, ProAvia said:

vmsACARS works with phpVMS v7

smartCARS presently does NOT work with phpVMS v7

 

If you are using phpVMS v7, vmsACARS is the only present solution.

 

Everyone has problems of some sort with MSFS - after all, it's still an alpha product.

 

Yes, you are right; this is the Alpha version, and I know it will grow up in the future.
 

 

On 4/7/2021 at 1:38 AM, DisposableHero said:

We had lots of problems with MsFs 2020 ... And will continue having them for maybe a year or more  And most of the problems we were/are/will be facing are not vmsAcars related, but directly caused by Asobo/Ms itself. Like assigning 5 letter codes to imaginary airports, not allowing to read scenery data, not allowing 3rd party apps to read aircraft data etc etc. As it develops, all will be solved (i hope)

 

SmartCARS currently have no advantages for v7 'cause it is not compatible at all. But if we imagine it works (with its current form) then main disadvantages will be;

 

1. Not working with v7

2. It is expensive

3. It does not offer flight save/resume option without a subscription

 

On the other hand, compared to SmartCARS vmsAcars does not have eye candy or ear candy features (yet) like custom sound sets being played during your flight , or a chat feature , an online radio etc and just a little bit limited maybe (this depends on the sim and addons used though, not a fact for me)

 

As @ProAvia mentioned, vmsAcars has the biggest advantage for v7

 

1. It works with v7

2. It is developed by the same person developing phpvms

3. Cheaper

4. Does not consume cpu/gpu/ram resources compared to others

 

So, if you want to stick with v7, then your only option is vmsAcars unless you are capable of developing your own

Thank you, my friend, you are always supporting us, and I'm appreciated it.
Based on your statement and explanation, I've been chosen to use vmsAcars at this time.
 

 

On 4/17/2021 at 6:11 PM, Nabeel said:

vmsACARS also has rules/points for deductions and will eventually have a way to program your own rules using Lua. I don't want to bloat it with eye/ear candy either, I'm keeping it streamlined and doing what it does really well

Thank you Nabell,
I'm working on writing modules and customize some point for our VA.
 

 

Just now, Simssmith said:

Quick write up for those interesting in this topic. Our VA went through a research phase before settling for PhpVMS7 + VMSAcars. 

 

Here are the main reasons behind it.

 

SmartCars is well known however we found out that it doesn't support phpVMS 7 yet so we must use phpVMS 5.
phpVMS 5.x is a none starter because it is outdate and won't run on supported version of OS/PHP etc.  This leave a potential security hole. 

That drove us to phpVMS 7.  We got a trial version of VMSAcars client to use it with https://demo.phpvms.net/ .  We did a lot of testing and

-It worked with FSX/P3D

-It worked with MSFS2020

-It worked with X-Plane

-Everything we needed are being captured in vmsAcars from the simulator. 

-It doesn't require users to subscribe to get additional feature.

-My VA is on discord so chat/radio were not needed that comes with Smartcars.

 

What convince us to proceed is actually the phpVMS discord. We saw how frequently phpVMS and ACARS client are being patched multiple times a week!  TDI doesn't offer such frequent patches.  Because the main author of phpVMS is also coding the ACARS, they can add new feature and changes as needed much faster.  Their Discord is full of people helping each other out far superior. 

 

We got phpVMS7 and purchased vmsAcars and went live with our VA.  Everything in our VA is going smooth even though the software is labeled as beta. In fact it is far more stable then many live products in the market.  

 

Feel free to message me. Hopefully this help. 

 

Thank you, Simssmith.
I "strongly" agree with you, and my choice was the same.

 

[DisposableHero]

I just want to add a line to @Simssmith 's nice message though

 

vmsAcars also works well with good old Fs2004 (Fs9)

 

If someday, an old veteran simmer wants to use Fs9, support is there. A nice to have feature for us 'cause most of my group still have Fs9 installed and we use it

 

And thanks for your kind thoughts and message @Vahid , hope you enjoy using phpvms v7 and vmsAcars like we do.