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Print on-Demand Solutions recently published a performance benchmark comparison on Darwin versus uDirect. This comparison study indicated that Darwin was consistently faster than uDirect across different application types and output formats; with results varying from twice as fast to over 22 times as fast, depending on the output format. I was quite surprised to learn that the performance gap between these two products was so signficant, so I decided to verify the results for myself.
I invited a representative from Print On-Demand Solutions and XMPie to attend my benchmark testing, so they could verify that the test environment was fair and my performance results were accurate.
I created four different application types and tested them across four VI output formats; VPS, PPML, PPML/VDX and VIPP. The applications varied in level of complexity, ranging from a simple mail-merge application, to a more complex applications with different business rules controlling text, image and colour objects.
The tests indicated that the results published by Print On-Demand Solutions were an accurate representation of the performance capabilities of both uDirect and Darwin software.
Although Darwin won hands-down on performance, speed should not be the sole deciding factor when choosing VDP software. It's important to remember the key differences between Darwin and uDirect. uDirect is still stronger in it's support for InDesign core features such as Transparency, Effects, Object Styles, while Darwin offers differentiation against uDirect through it's page picking ability from different InDesign documents and hot folder automation for creating print-ready files from database files.
While speed may be a bonus for Darwin, uDirect comes with it's strengths too. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself "how important is composition speed?" Saving several seconds or even minutes in output composition shouldn't really impact your production environment — it just gives you a bit more time to take a breath, or maybe boil the kettle for your next cuppa while you charge your client for a little more time...
Posted on Thursday, 8 November 2007 at 8:48 PM | TrackBack: http://www.veedeepee.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/50