Has anyone here tried using SmartFoxServer (or any other server, I’m not picky) for their iPhone game yet? …Martin?
I have 
It works, but not for the general public yet due to a bug in Unity iPhone (which will be fixed with the next release crosses fingers)
1:1 API with Unity - but you have the disadvantage of Unity iPhone not supporting the build in keyboard, so you have to find another way to input chat text.
/Thomas
good that you talk exactly to the one who developed the expansion pack that offers the iphone keyboard ^^
but great to hear that it potentially work with the iphone once the showstoper is out
Yeah, I got the keyboard thing solved 
I was actually thinking of using their iPhone API / obj-c framework, so I’m not worried about the broken async sockets, either.
It’s kind of pricey for a socket server so I’m mostly wondering about things like admin and moderation tools – are they worth the bucks? The per-user licensing is a pain if the app takes off. Something like ejabberd is free and scales like magic. OpenFire looks good, too. (Not that I want to write my own XMPP library.)
Once the user base gets above “small” the admin and moderation tools matter, so I guess that’s really my question. The tools rock?
lol - sorry. Didnt really notice that
Hmmm - it all depends on what you need and how much work you want to put into things yourselves. If all you need is a basic socket server, then there are tons of examples on the net how to do just that.
SFS is great in that it provides the higher level API for common things (chat, login, room management, sending objects etc), cross platform APIs, scalability, the admin tools (that are ok) but not the least its battle proven.
You can very very quickly end up with hundreds of hours of your own time implementing something - so if thats ok with you, then SFS is not worth it. If you want to get a game out ASAP - or even need commercial support - and have the “time is money” over your head, then SFS, NetDog and other solutions are the way to go.
At least thats my oppinion.
For me reinventing the wheel is essential, so I dont think its too expensive. But thats the situation for me.
(Mentally inserting “not” in there) I agree wholeheartedly. I am not interested in reinveting the chat server wheel. (I have already built a scaling, clustering chat server and I’m not doing it again.)
I didn’t really phrase my question well. I’m willing to spend money on a chat server, but if I do, I want the admin and moderation tools to be really great. If they’re not, ejabberd (and other XMPP servers) are free, have simpler scaling than SFS, and IIRC there are (not so great, but free) moderation front-ends available for XMPP.
Does SMS include tools for things like kicking and banning? Bad-word filters?
(Considering the news about Tweetie today, a bad word filter is crucial.)
I think they are pretty great.
download for the pro 20 user license, it seems to be totally unrestricted beside the amount of users.
start up the server and start the admin swf (another great bonus ) and give it a go. you can ban and kick users and many more things.
I’ve to say that I was really stunned what you get at the 2000€
We have evaluated Neutron as well as NetDog in the past for our purpose and SFS Pro definitly stands above both when it comes in its simplicity to use, do the general stuff and especially if your target is something chat alike, I don’t think its possible to create anything near that with the two without a fair amount of work.
Also SFS Pro is the only one with admin tools at all.
Neutron is interesting as well as the non realtime servers run as regular webservices, which makes them automagically multiserver capable due to IIS for example. But you either like working with .NET, webservices and IIS or it won’t be of use to you.
NetDog is only a networking library, no (MMO) backend technology, so it actually does not fit in aboves list at all, as you will have to develop a server and all first before it is a backend tech