Family Tree Maker vs RootsMagic Software

Right off the bat I have to say I would not recommend purchasing Family Tree Maker 2014, which just came out a few weeks ago, until it's fixed. It's going to take some time for them to work out several problems with the new version. 

I decided to purchase the 2014 version of Family Tree Maker because of the ability it gives you to sync your online tree with your personal software on your computer. I had spent many hours attaching and uploading information to that tree since 2010. I wanted to have a personal copy of it. You can download a gedcom of your tree, but that doesn't include media. I had been using Rootsmagic since 2010 as my personal genealogy software. Before Rootsmagic I used PAF which is similar but has fewer features.
Since I have some experience now using both softwares I decided to compare some of the features I use most often here:
First of all starting the program there is a difference in the time it takes for them to load. Rootsmagic generally loads immediately. Family Tree Maker never loads quickly. It can take between 1 to 3 minutes to load, and other times won't load at all? Family Tree Maker is also prone to freezing up while you are using it.
Looking at the primary screen Family Tree Maker lays out a great deal of data on one page, which can be useful when it comes to analyzing your data.

You can see that the primary page for Rootsmagic is much less busy. You can click on the tabs across the top to see family groups etc.. I prefer the less busy screen of Rootsmagic.

One thing I would change about RootsMagic is the dialog box that comes up when you want to import a file or Photos. I use date and name search to look for files on my computer. It is time consuming trying to locate a file without that feature in the dialog box.

The hated no search dialog box at Rootsmagic

The preferred Family Tree Maker searchable dialog box

Another place where Family Tree Maker shines is with their media viewer. You can flip through your images and look at them in the media viewer. You can only view one image at a time with Rootsmagic. You can scroll through thumbnails of your images at Rootsmagic. When you want to see them at a larger size you have to click on each one individually. The resolution of the image isn't as sharp at Rootsmagic either.

You can see the difference when you compare this image from Rootsmagic with the FTM viewer below

Family Tree Maker media viewer

My primary reason for using genealogy software is to keep a record of my research so I can refer back to it, which I often do, during my research process. Another way I enjoy using the software is generating books and charts to share with family. I like the Rootmagic book generating feature better than Family Tree Maker. The FTM book generating process is more clumsy and time consuming. Rootsmagic takes all of the facts you've imputed for each individual ancestor and creates a narrative summary of with these facts. You can produce a narrative report which includes all your ancestors, very quickly, and includes notes. Family Tree Maker Smart Stories produces a better narrative with the facts in your database. It sounds less computer generated; plus, you can type info to the report. The only problem is you have to create a smart story for each ancestor then combine the stories using the publish book feature. Since I would like to include a couple hundred narratives this might be time consuming.

This is the narrative generated by Rootsmagic

Smart Story Family Tree Maker

Rootsmagic produces a very attractive scrapbook. I have not found this feature at Family Tree Maker.

Page produced with Rootsmagic scrapbook.

In closing, I now have two genealogy software programs on my computer (plus still have paf). I think I'll be using features from both to create a book. I might use the comprehensive narrative report from Rootsmagic, and the Smart Story from Family Tree Maker for ancestors I want more indepth stories for. I would also use some of the Scrapbook pages from Rootsmagic. Since Rootsmagic opens faster I would probably refer to it more during research. I will be using the syncing feature at Family Tree maker if they can get it working properly. The FamilySearch tree access at Rootsmagic is also a useful feature. You can compare your tree with FamilySearch's tree and add any information you don't already have. Having several genealogy programs is nice, I can use the best features of  all of them.