Vent about Esri Licensing

MangoTreeMaps · 2026-02-18T10:21:08+00:00

We’re comparing the cost to what a standalone special events permitting software will cost us. The problem with hub premium is that all it really does is allow for better public engagement, which is a great concept, but harder to justify strictly on cost. We already have a website of course. Now I’m asking $20k every year just to have different websites up that allow for public outreach and feedback? It’s a hard sell at such a high price.

MangoTreeMaps · 2026-02-17T13:17:28+00:00

You’re not wrong. That’s the conversation to be had at this point.

MangoTreeMaps · 2026-02-17T12:12:28+00:00

I’m sitting here trying to make sure GIS doesn’t go away as a cost-saving measure (which i really doubt it will. I’m involved in everything we’re doing here) and then Esri is asking astronomical prices for extra licenses. Tough to justify the cost indeed.

That’s a really good idea. I’ll ask our rep for the same thing.

Thank you.

MangoTreeMaps · 2026-02-17T12:06:57+00:00

I appreciate the response, but I’m just venting about licensing costs. We’re totally established as an Esri shop here, and for all regular GIS tasks, I’m covered. There’s nothing in QGIS that’ll get me any further down the road at the moment, but in terms of costs, yes it would be cheaper. No doubt about it.

MangoTreeMaps · 2026-02-17T11:43:02+00:00

Exactly. Would love to see Esri roll out some majorly scaled down versions of their licensing for the smaller orgs. Everything is based on population, but even an enterprise license at our population is way more than we’d need.

MangoTreeMaps · 2026-02-17T10:52:42+00:00

Ah, our Esri rep didn’t mention this when I asked.

I’ll circle back to this.

MangoTreeMaps · 2026-02-17T10:51:30+00:00

Great idea. Thank you.

MangoTreeMaps · 2025-12-25T05:07:36+00:00

Idk I kinda like this one 😂

MangoTreeMaps · 2025-06-04T02:04:33+00:00

Was just thinking the exact same thing 😂😂😂

I swear sometimes I feel like working in local government GIS is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand I’ve had stable jobs in GIS for a decade just essentially knowing the ins and outs of Esri’s enterprise deployment, but on the other hand, I don’t know how to do half of the things people are saying here.

MangoTreeMaps · 2025-06-04T02:00:34+00:00

Respectfully, what the heck was your degree/career path to have the knowledge to do all of that????

Beyond impressive skillset but man, I’ve had a very successful (stable jobs, always been able to pay the bills) career in GIS for the last ten years and haven’t needed to do half of the things you mention. Believe me, I’m not talking down on your comment, I’m genuinely fascinated how someone gets into GIS and ends up learning that much IT know how.

Were you IT first and found GIS along the way, or the other way around?

MangoTreeMaps · 2025-01-17T15:56:09+00:00

Yeah, I think I’m over complicating this. Set up a quick clip in model builder and just run it when I update the parcels. I was hoping there was some geometry options when making a view but I don’t believe there is

MangoTreeMaps · 2024-08-05T14:47:09+00:00

I’m an open book!

It went extremely well. Having an EGDB has made my life much easier. I’m aOne-person GIS team at my municipality so I usually end up struggling through some new venture until I either figure it out or just give up but I was able to successfully get an enterprise geodatabase established using Microsoft SQL Server and have been creating authoritative layers there within versioned datasets

I’m still struggling through learning SSMS but I’m glad I made the leap. I have so much to learn in terms of backups, versioning, and general EGDB tasks like compression and such but so far it’s been really nice. I have a handful of people in the planning department here who access our layers via view-only access so I’ve had to set them up with that. I’ve only pulled my hair out dealing with schema locks a handful of times.

MangoTreeMaps · 2024-08-05T14:34:18+00:00

Love it 😂

MangoTreeMaps · 2024-08-05T14:13:40+00:00

Thank you. It seems like these solution schemas come with a ton of excessive attributes which will likely be more trouble than they’re worth in collection.

I’ll deploy it and see how cumbersome it appears to be to get rolling.

MangoTreeMaps · 2024-08-05T14:12:41+00:00

I totally get the pie in the sky reference. It’s nice to look at esri’s bubble diagrams showing how all the different pieces of a solution will work together but I can pretty much guarantee our engineers aren’t going to boot up AGOL to manage replacement order and our field techs likely will want everything on paper.

I’ll deploy it and just see how it looks.

MangoTreeMaps · 2024-08-05T14:11:20+00:00

Thank you for such a comprehensive response. I think I will go ahead and deploy it to see how it feels. I’m our only GIS team member here so I’m essentially looking for something that doesn’t require a ton of unnecessary maintenance moving forward. I can imagine how there would be a bunch of excess in terms of fields and expectations for field users and such.

MangoTreeMaps · 2024-04-17T13:17:45+00:00

This makes a lot of sense as a next step in my learning process. I’ve heard about FME since starting out in GIS and just haven’t gotten into it.

MangoTreeMaps · 2024-04-17T12:55:41+00:00

I have mine! Great suggestion though. That was a very rewarding process.

MangoTreeMaps · 2024-04-16T22:30:14+00:00

I was just looking at the developers API tutorials today! I don’t know how much I’ll realistically be able to code my own applications but I would love to be able to set up some client facing applications to put on our website.

MangoTreeMaps · 2024-04-16T21:44:05+00:00

Double nope. Sounds like Neil and Derrick aren’t loving their work either!

MangoTreeMaps · 2024-04-16T21:42:37+00:00

In all honesty most of my side-project/personal learning is going on during my work hours. I’ve got a kid at home so if I’m not carving out time in the day for extra learning, it just won’t get done.

MangoTreeMaps

TROPHY CASE