How to Choose a CAD/MDT System Without Migrating Twice

Switching CAD systems is painful. You lose records, you retrain forty people, and half your roster stops showing up during the transition. So it is worth spending an hour on the decision now.

The market got busier as the audience grew. FiveM passed 200,000 concurrent Steam players in 2025, and more options showed up to serve it. More choice is good. It also means more products that look finished and are not.

This is the short version of that hour.

Start With How Your Server Actually Plays

Count your dispatchers honestly

Not how many you have on the roster. How many are actually online during a normal Tuesday patrol.

If that number is usually zero, automatic call routing is not a nice extra, it is the feature that determines whether the system gets used at all. Servers that pick a manual only CAD and hope someone volunteers end up abandoning it within two months.

Count your members

Under twenty five members, most free tiers work fine and you should not overthink it. Past a hundred, permission depth and audit logging start to matter more than any front end polish.

The Things Worth Testing Before You Commit

Routing behavior

Create three calls at once with two units online. Watch what happens. Does an available unit get attached without anyone assigning it. Does the high priority call jump the queue. Does a unit that goes idle get pulled out of the pool.

Those three behaviors are what separate a system that survives a dispatcherless night from one that does not. Ask to see them in a trial rather than on a feature list.

Permission depth

Try to give someone the ability to file reports but not approve them. If that requires a support ticket or a config file, your staff will never adjust it after launch.

Data export

Ask how you get your records out. A system without export is a system you cannot leave. This is the single question most communities skip and later regret. More on the admin side in the server administration guide.

Free, Paid, or Self Hosted

Free tiers are real and they are usually enough to start. You typically hit the wall on member limits, custom branding, or permission granularity rather than core features, which the breakdown of what a free plan actually includes covers in detail.

Paid plans run from a few dollars a month to a few tens of dollars for large communities. That buys you hosting, uptime, and somebody to blame when it breaks at midnight.

Self hosting costs less money and more of your life. Choose it only if you already run a VPS, already keep FiveM artifacts current, and have a second person who could restore a backup without you. The honest cost comparison for self hosting prices the hours rather than the subscription.

Running a Trial That Tells You Something

Most trials fail to inform because one person clicks around alone for twenty minutes. A CAD with one user tells you nothing, because every problem it has is a problem between people.

Use three accounts and one patrol

Get three accounts and run a single real patrol on the trial system, in parallel with whatever you use now. Ninety minutes is enough.

Watch two things specifically. How long it takes a new person to mark on duty and find the call queue without being told, and what happens to the queue when all three testers go quiet for ten minutes.

Ask the question that reveals the builders

Ask what happens on a night when nobody is dispatching, because for most communities that is most nights.

A vague answer means the product assumes a staffed dispatch chair. A specific answer, covering how calls reach units and what happens to units that stop responding, means the people building it have run a community themselves.

Questions Worth Asking First

Can you export your records, and in what format. Is there an audit log for edits and deletions. How is support handled, and how quickly do questions actually get answered. Does the roster handle more than one department, since a fire or medical division added later is expensive to retrofit.

None of this is about catching anyone out. These are just the things that are cheap to check now and expensive to discover in month four.

Not sure what any of this means yet, start with what a CAD/MDT system is and come back to this page afterward.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best CAD/MDT for FiveM?

The best one for you depends on whether you staff dispatch. Servers without regular dispatchers need automatic routing and self dispatch. Servers with a full dispatch team can prioritize manual control and reporting depth instead.

Are free CAD/MDT systems good enough?

For communities under roughly twenty five active members, yes. Limits usually appear as member caps or restricted permissions rather than missing core features.

How long does it take to set up a CAD/MDT?

An afternoon for the basics. Departments, ranks, your roster, and a first patrol. Communities that try to configure everything before launch usually take weeks and often never finish.

Can I move my records from one CAD to another?

Only if your current system offers export. Check that before you migrate, and check it on the system you are moving to as well.

Do I need a CAD if my server is small?

Not at ten members. Around twenty five, memory stops covering for you and warrants start getting missed. That is the usual point where communities adopt one.

Should I run a CAD and a dispatch script together?

Many servers do. The script generates in game alerts, the CAD keeps the records and permissions. Just make sure only one of them owns the call queue.