Comparison

Fire Arrow vs Firely Server

Firely Server is a commercial FHIR server with strong conformance, validation, and SMART-on-FHIR tooling. Fire Arrow centers on application backend patterns: RBAC over clinical relationships, GraphQL with search narrowing, server-side CarePlan scheduling, and integrated subscriptions.

Review Fire Arrow editions Book an architecture comparison

Who this is for

Architects, CTOs, staff engineers, and product leaders evaluating FHIR infrastructure options.

Clinical applicability

A care program that needs patient questionnaires, organisation-scoped access, GraphQL dashboards, and server-side scheduling can evaluate Fire Arrow Server as the application backend. A program centered on validation pipelines, profiles, and SMART app integration may find Firely's surface a closer fit.

Capability comparison

Capability Fire Arrow Firely Server

FHIR R4 storage HAPI JPA + Postgres (Server) Firely Server data store

Profile validation HAPI-level validation Firely's strong validator

Authorization model Rule-based with compartment validators, identity & property filters Firely permissions / SMART scopes

GraphQL Built-in, separate graphql-read/graphql-search ops Add-on or via custom code

CarePlan-to-Task scheduling Server-side materialization Build externally

Subscriptions REST hook, email, WebSocket, Azure Storage Queue Per Firely capability

When to choose Firely Server

You center on Firely's mature conformance and validation tooling, SMART scope patterns, and Firely ecosystem support.

When to choose Fire Arrow

You center on application backend patterns: rule-based RBAC across REST and GraphQL, identity-aware filters, CarePlan scheduling, subscriptions, and admin tooling for product teams.

Related docs

FAQ

Does Fire Arrow validate FHIR profiles as strictly as Firely?

Validation runs at the HAPI FHIR layer. Profile validation is supported, but Firely's validator is widely regarded as the most thorough in the FHIR ecosystem. If profile validation is the central requirement, that is a meaningful factor in the comparison.

Does Fire Arrow support SMART on FHIR?

Not directly. Fire Arrow's authentication is OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect, which is the same foundation SMART on FHIR builds on, but Fire Arrow does not implement the SMART app launch profile and cannot be launched from an existing SMART-on-FHIR container as a SMART app endpoint. Authorization is expressed through Fire Arrow's own rule and filter model, which is more expressive than SMART scopes (relationship-aware compartments, identity and property filters, server-enforced search narrowing across REST and GraphQL). If your workflow requires a SMART launch into Fire Arrow, that is currently a Firely strength rather than a Fire Arrow one.