IMHO, the direct competitor of Server.app in the "SMB office server" use-case is actually a Synology NAS appliance. Synology's set of first-party OS packages has 1:1 feature parity (and then some) with every function Server.app either has, or used to have.<p>And that's the key-word here: appliance. A NAS is a standalone box that receives automatic updates, is 100% remote-management enabled by default, can be easily reset to factory settings, and can't be messed up by employees who think it'd be neat to run local native apps on it, "since it's a computer just sitting there."<p>Plus, since a NAS isn't going to be doing any desktop-OS things, the software for it can be slimmed down enough to run on lower-specced hardware, making the appliance itself much cheaper than the sort of machine required to run Server.app smoothly.<p>No SMB office-manager who needs this kind of functionality these days would buy a Mac <i>or</i> PC, to set up server software on it and leave it sitting there headless in the office. They'd buy a NAS.<p>And, IMHO, that's why Apple haven't kept Server.app up to date. There's just no <i>demand</i> for it any more. Not because of the cloud (which is mostly a <i>complementary</i> use-case) but rather because this software-solution vertical has now evolved into a turn-key hardware-appliance solution vertical. And it's one with slim-enough profit margins, that Apple doesn't want to compete.
One man shop pro fotog here. My macOS server 5.6.3 High Sierra is awesome, the last complete version... File Server with literally decades and multiple terabytes of raw photos… The ease of the email server is unmatched…. Websites and Nextcloud, invoiceninja, all just work with minimal php tweaking…. and all here IN MY OFFICE. I have linux droplets, and am more or less ready to make the move, but I won’t until it actually dies… but only when I have to. I hope the hardware (from 2010) holds out forever, but I do have a spare ready and daily CCC backups and disks rotated to firesafe… at least for me it just works. Knock on wood.
To be fair: while they did leave all the classical 'server' type use cases out in the cold and are making it worse every release, it's not actually the future or the best practice to still roll out.<p>We are in between the legacy 'directory' based networks with authentication etc, and the more robust and expansive beyondcorp type setups. Do you really still need classical 'user' and 'group' membership things? Network accounts? Local web servers? Pretty much anything of significance is in a private or public cloud, if only because the fast pace and scaling. All that is left is basic file sharing that is sometimes done locally, and even that is becoming more and more stupid to implement in a workflow or business process. (regardless of your OS or vendor)<p>There are of course still some true file-based processes where Apple is still used a lot, but even that is no longer local-file-only; a lot of the still and motion processing is done either super small locally or simply distributed to dedicated systems like render farms. And for the 1-man-photo business all of the local stuff still works and you really wouldn't have gotten anything out of 'server' anyway.<p>The most problematic holdouts are the likes of Adobe who refuse to write applications that play nice with NAS-type filesharing so that just leaves you with file syncing instead.
Former big time user here. The product slowly declined from its own operating system to a buggy app.<p>We really had no choice but to migrate onto other products and these days even hard core Mac folks use AD for directory, Exchange for email and 3rd party products for device management.
Mac OS X was first released as Mac OS X Server 1.0, the commercial release of Rhapsody, and then released as Mac OS X Server for Cheetah, Puma, Panther, Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard, before being released as a standalone update to Lion, and then hitting the App Store for $19.99 for all future releases.
Changelog for 5.10:<p>> Device Enrollment: Enable FileVault support on first user login<p>> Send all traffic through VPN<p>Great work Apple!<p>> Release date: Apr 1st 2020<p>Oh dear, Nevermind.
I setup a mac mini with this software (3rd quarter 2019) and I can tell you it deserves every bit of that 1.5 rating.<p>No magic left in there at all.<p>Ended up dropping it and using the functionality of Airwatch.
Performance was mediocre compared to Linux. Everything that it shipped with was outdated. There was a weird mix of GUI tools and commandline to get anything done. And to top it off, things were (at the very least) just-different-enough to confuse someone who thought, "I know Linux this will be easy."
While it's a shame that the OS X, er, Mac OS Server "app" has basically been killed over the last few years (maybe more than a few at this point), I suspect it just wasn't selling very well. I know it had some great tools for configuring and setting up some services, but if you're a engineering-focused company you're probably going to use Linux for office servers; on the business/office side, you're very likely going to just go with Microsoft; if you need web or server hosting, you're almost certainly doing it off-premises, not with a Mac mini stuffed in the corner.<p>That mostly leaves enthusiast and small office scenarios, most of which can get by just fine with "non-server" macOS. After all, they've always literally been the same operating system. My Mac mini is a headless media and file server and has, in the past, been the printer server as well -- and all of that's enabled just by clicking boxes in the "Sharing" control panel. (Heck, I could even turn on "content caching" to have it keep a copy of all macOS/iOS software updates on it, which would be great for a small-to-medium office.)
Yup. It stinks.
They made a decision to leave the backbone/infrastructure market.
I don't blame them.
The main thing about MacOSX Server, is that I don't trust it to be around too much longer. A Linux box will be around, in one form or another, forever.<p>However, it's easier for me to buy some canned solution; either pure software, an SaaS, or a hardware solution.
For context, the majority of server features were removed in macOS Server 5.7.1, with a few features migrated to macOS High Sierra and the remainder left to be handled by open source alternatives. The initial announcement from Apple was discussed on HN in 2018. [1] [2]<p>[1]: <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208312" rel="nofollow">https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208312</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18113147" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18113147</a>
IMO Apple deserves all the hate on this one. It was good once. Thank god I moved on to proper servers with linux. They should just kill it and let the community take over.
Real admins run linux anyways and should have no problem implementing common services.
Supporting every little mom and pop that doesn't understand DNS, ports, file permissions or network users, which is generally looking for the cheapest solution will be be trying to integrate the lowest of the low end equipment and may cause even more problems beyond the control of Apple to be able to reliably support. What most small business need are just a NAS with network printer support.
I'm beginning to think Apple isn't very good at making software that its users want or need because their focus is flashy fluff that demos well on stage.