Gramps Review by Douglas T Watts,  20 hrs ago

Too Complex hen it came to adding a spouse???

Gramps Review by Hal Bates,  May 29, 2013

This program is junk. Every time I run a report to produce a web output I get a different result any changes to the data or report criteria whatsoever. Rubbish.

Gramps Review by Hal Bates,  May 26, 2013

I found it very difficult to use and it is not intuitive.

Biggest Pro: Very extensive for recording information about each person
Biggest Con: Hard to use or figure out

Gramps Review by Jim C.,  Apr 20, 2013

I’ve used Gramps for years and used Family Tree Maker before that. Gramps wins hands down as far as features and ease of use goes but, like any other program, switching to it after using something else takes time.

If you’re not willing to spend the time to learn how to use gramps, stick to what you’re familiar with and don’t whine about how difficult this excellent program is to use. Anyone that invests the effort will find Gramps worthy.

Biggest Pro: Free, full-featured and runs on multiple platforms
Biggest Con: Not precisely the same as whatever…

Gramps Review by Doug,  Jan 27, 2013

Whilst it clearly has many features inputting even basic information is far too complicated and the doucmentation is weak. Even a simple task like creating a marriage link between two people isn’t intuitive and the information required (available names of the right gender) simply does not display. I’m sure it is a fine programme if you have the time and desire to overcome the steep learning curve and complex operations, but get-up-and-go it isn’t.

Biggest Pro: Depth of features
Biggest Con: Interface far too complex

Gramps Review by CAB,  Jan 25, 2013

The only text it accepts is English. I have relatives in other countries and they have names in another languages…

No, this doesn’t work for me.

Biggest Pro: Don’t know. Didn’t get in too far.
Biggest Con: No Unicode support

Gramps Review by Art,  Jan 4, 2013

I have the mac version and it takes some time to understand how to enter information. This is due to the opensource nature of this application. However, It is very nice for compiling a family tree. I would say that once you spend some time learning how to use it, you ge very good at. The reporting could use some improvement but it may also be becuase I have to learn exactly how to report things correctly and so for non computer literate folks thisis an even bigger challenge. I still say that it is the best I have seen yet.

Biggest Pro: Organization of family tree and book reporting capability
Biggest Con: Ease of use (practice makes perfect)

Gramps Review by Dan Garnitz,  Jan 4, 2013

Gramps is a great genealogy program and has a great set of features available. I use it in Linux, XP, and Vista installs all with no problems. Granted as commented here it can sometime be slow on very large databases, that can also be affected by OS and machine specs. Being a free software package is a plus, and the developers are constantly adding features and reports based on requests and comments. I have been doing genealogy for almpst 30 years and have tried probably every software package since the early ’80s. I am not sure why several reviews complain about interface, seems pretty straight forward to me. To add a person use the people screen, to add a family use the Families screen. Everyone had their own “favorite” interface. I personanly hate the interface of FTM. Most software has a small learning curve. In my choice of software one of my criteria is intuitiveness. If you have to pull out manual, then in my mind the software is not a good package. Gramps has large following, using all 3 of the supported OS, Winows, MAC, and Linux. All 3 will install all needed dependancies, assuming the full installer was downloaded for that OS. Has GEDCOM import and export, numerous reports, and several “bells and whistles.”

Biggest Pro: Free genealogy software
Biggest Con: Can at times be slow depending on database size and PC specs.

Gramps Review by francis,  Dec 31, 2012

Très bon programme mais un peu lent avec beaucoup d’entrées, plus de 70000

Google translation: Very good program but a little slow with a lot of entries, more than 70,000

Gramps Review by Robert K. Tompsett,  Nov 21, 2012

Installed Gramps on Ubuntu 12.04. Gramps has no documention worth using. It has no means to import files from another program. Gramps is worthless.

I pray to God every night that Family Tree Maker will make a Linux Ubuntu verson because Gramps does not even come close to user friendly.

Biggest Pro: None
Biggest Con: User unfriendly

Gramps Review by Grampa Betts,  Oct 29, 2012

Gramps is a remarkably full featured genealogy program that is easy to use. It is also reliable, stable, and saves your data in an open source format. It expects you to do the footwork of research- it does not link to online resources or provide raw databases of genealogical data.

Unlike most proprietary (commercial) programs, Gramps has had a large community of both users AND developers. New features are often implemented based on feedback and bugs are fixed quickly..

Lots of commercial genealogy programs have come and gone- leaving users stranded with obsolete and non-functioning software. Gramps will be around as long as the user-base demands- its developers ARE the part of the community.

Biggest Pro: Open source, multi-platform, free, easy, powerful, stable.
Biggest Con: How can a program this great be free?

Gramps Review by J. Poole,  Jun 25, 2012

Reading these reviews, it seems people either hate Gramps or like it. It is quite a powerful program for free, and it as good as or better than any of the other genealogy programs I’ve tried. For you Windows people, there is a Windows Installer for Gramps (search for Gramps on Windows) which automates the ridiculously complex process of putting Gramps on a Win PC. I use the Ubuntu version of Gramps, but I have used the Windows Installer to put it on a Windows PC with no issues.

I like the program. I think if you give it a chance, you might like it too, even if you’re a Windows person. Mac?- no idea…

Biggest Pro: Free– and as fully featured as the paid versions I’ve tried
Biggest Con: Free– at upgrade time, you get what the developers wanted, not necessarily what you wanted.

Gramps Review by niteowl,  Jun 22, 2012

This software is the worst genealogy software for entering info I have ever used, I have been a genealogist for 22 years and would NOT recommend this software, free or not.

Biggest Pro: privacy
Biggest Con: navigation and data entry

Gramps Review by Chris,  Jun 2, 2012

I have used an earlier version (2.2?) and upgraded to 3.3 when I recently got a new computer. 3.3 is a big improvement in navigation and data entry. This version is also much more intuitive and easier to learn.
I have not used any of the other genealogy software availabe so I can’t compare against the other main ones that are available.

I am using in a Linux OS. I have not tried in Windows or Mac.

I am giving it a four vs the two I would given as a grade to the earlier version. The developers made some big strides.

Biggest Pro: A much easier version to use from the prior version.
Biggest Con: Some data (dates and family relationships) was lost when moving from version 2.2 to 3.3. (luckily I hadn’t done much more than learn the program)

Gramps Review by R Stevens,  Apr 30, 2012

Mac version is awful, ridiculously difficult to enter the most basic of info. Help buttons don’t work

Biggest Pro: Instantly awful so little time wasted before dumping it
Biggest Con: Takes user friendliness to new lows

Gramps Review by linux user,  Feb 8, 2012

I installed and use the Linux version of Gramps, not the Windows version of Gramps.

It is easy to understand and use. The interface is clear and straightforward. References, pictures are handled pretty well. There is a communiy of developers that provide add-ons that you can download. All of it is free.

The tools work well. Gedcom file input and output work well, same for backups.

The generated reports are NOT that good because they look amateurish but I only use it for my own personal use so that doens’t impact me.

Try it and see what you think.

Biggest Pro: free
Biggest Con: reports

Gramps Review by catsy,  Nov 29, 2011

15 years of experience with genealogy software, and this is the most user-unfriendly experience ever. Utterly non-intuitive. None of the links work. Trying to figure out how to enter basic data is nearly impossible. Who knows what I should have done differently with the Mac installation, but I can’t be bothered to waste any more time with it. Reading the reviews, I wonder how there can be any relationship between the software I downloaded, and the software that others are reviewing.

Biggest Pro: free
Biggest Con: completely non-intuitive

Gramps Review by DougVL,  Sep 22, 2011

Kind of interesting, but I had to use the Portable Apps version, which isn’t the latest.
I tried and tried, but could not fill the ‘dependencies’ for installing the Windows version. It needs a LOT of other software, installed in very particular ways. And following the instructions exactly, it still wouldn’t work.

I’m mainly looking for charts that show relatives, not just ancestors or descendants. This has such a chart, but only saved as SVG file format. It’s been pretty hard to find a way to use that.

Biggest Pro: Has an ‘all relatives’ or ‘everyone’ chart
Biggest Con: ‘all relatives’ or ‘everyone’ chart produced in SVG file format

Gramps Review by Benjamin Wade,  Sep 21, 2011

This program is full featured and powerful, but the installation requires that you first install other (free) programs, making it slightly too complex for some computer users.

Biggest Pro: full featured and powerful.
Biggest Con: hard to install and poor instructions.

Gramps Review by Dan Cornett,  Jul 20, 2011

I was looking for a means to transfer GEDCOM data from online genealogy site (Geni.com) to a local Filemaker Pro (FMP) database (Mac OS/X). I haven’t found anything to do that directly yet, but I came across Gramps and found that I could import GEDCOM, then export .CVS files, which will import into FMP. I’m still deciding between staying with my FMP vs. moving everything from there into Gramps, but so far I find Gramps can do most things (and a lot more) than I had in my FMP database … except data entry (new person info) — that’s the main thing keeping this from being a 5 (best of breed).

I haven’t tried a large dataset yet, however (only ~800 people, but that went at a reasonable clip).

I’m currently thinking I may end up maintaining/updating most things online, but using my local copy (via AncestorSync, when completed!) for detailed analysis and validation — and Gramps has great tools for that. I will wait a while before deciding to keep the FMP version or make Gramps my ‘reference copy’.

Biggest Pro: Capabilities, extensibility (e.g.: Gramplets), good set of import/export/analysis options.
Biggest Con: Rather clunky interface for adding new people & relationships.